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10T0GRAPHED BY SAR0N1 




J^r^L- 




AS IT IS TO BE. 



(yH*r*>-iju&cn ) 



-nvvo CORA LINN^DANIELS, 

Author of " Sardia" — a. Novel. 



'/rTtrl X 1 



PUBLISHED BY CORA LINN DANIELS, 
FRANKLIN, MASS. 



K V " V 1 






Copyrighted 1892. 

By Cora Linn Daniels. 

All rights reserved. 

As It Is To Be. 



Press of King, Fowle & Co. 
Milwaukee, Wis. 



DEDICATION: 

J getete tftfe $BtorIt to gait. . 

MAY YOU ENJOY AND SPREAD JOY ALL THE 
DAYS OP YOUR LIFE. 

C. L. D. 



•Jits' 



List of Illustrations, 



By Hammatt Billings, Mark Forrest 




and Others. 


i 


Frontispiece — Portrait. 


2 


" Consider the Lilies." 


3 


The Four Winds. 


4 


Peace. 


3 


A Heavenly Harvest. 


6 


Escaped. 


7 


Chained. 


8 


The Conqueror. 


9 


First Flight. 


IO 


Hossanna ! 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page. 
How the Narrative Began 17 

The Philosopher. The Spiritualist. The Thinker. 
The Physician. The Religionist. The Read- 
er. The Voices. The first step. English lan- 
guage. Telegraph. Foreign countries. India. 
Human beings. A living friend. Voices of 
spirits. Subtle difference. 

CHAPTER II. 
The Process of Dying 22 

Contemplation. Death. Peace. Pure light. In- 
finite content. Faces. Laughter. Rising up- 
wards. Becoming changed. No change of indi- 
viduality. Opening of spiritual consciousness. 
The walls of Heaven. Location of Heaveu. 
Near and far at once. Instantaneous communi- 
cation. Illustration. 

5 



b CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

Page. 

Light and Speed 28 

Light unlike anything known. A blazing star. 
Hearing at a distance of millions of miles. In- 
stantaneous journey from a star. Immortal 
thought. Eating in Heaven. Intensity of life. 
A spirit's feat. A spirit at the theater. Start- 
ling sympathy. Communication before death. 
An intangible grasp. Astonishing phenomena. 
Throwing the spirit to a distance. An absent 
spirit. Do spirits suffer ? Human sorrow vain. 
Life like a broken toy. Ideas assume form. 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Law of Attraction 36 

Gentle reproaches. Spirits have no power to seek 
those who do not desire them. The law of 
mutual attraction. Magnetic currents. Atten- 
tion a prime element of spiritual law. Will. 

CHAPTER V. 
Evil and Purity 39 

A point in morals. No evil in spirit life. Illus- 
tration of the parable of the ten talents. The 
symbol of a pure soul. 



CONTENTS. i 

CHAPTER VI. Page% 
Senses of Spirit 42 

Spirits on approaching earth do not necessarily as- 
sume human form. Mortals could not recog- 
nize a spirit in the spiritual form. Spirits have 
senses and perceptions. Spiritual senses mag- 
nified infinitely. Spiritual sense of touch. Uni- 
versal knowledge. Cognizance of whatever 
attracts attention. Studies of the spiritual life. 
More than five senses. New senses. Reason 
is absolute. Spiritual knowledge without doubt. 
The telescopic and microscopic eye. Hearing 
by the law of attraction. Dominion of spirit 
over matter. The life of spirit depends upon 
conscious Will. The new name. The differ- 
ence between human and spiritual language rad- 
ical. A language of facts. A spiritual laugh. 
St. John intensely intuitive. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Our Conditions and Surroundings 
after Death 



Spirit dictation. A community perishes. What 
their condition ? Children enter a land of un- 
speakable beauty. Heaven's gate not shut to 
any soul. Progression in spirit life instantane- 
ous. Goodness and eternal life joy in them- 
selves. Evil, properly, not a malignant force. 
Definition too sweeping. No spiritual evil. Evil 
elemental. Punishment. Annihilation of oppor- 
tunities and joys. No soul left helpless. Time 
of no account. Who was the Christ ? " My 
Father and I are One," illustrated. A spiritual 
home. The garment of immortality. 



53 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Page. 

Idea- Facts . . 64 

Interruption of converse. The issues of life and 
death. Material the manifestation of idea. 
God's practicality. The play of Almighty intel- 
lect. Personal entity a fact, with or without 
form. Human life based on expression. An 
intuitive experiment. Expressing an idea-fact. 
Carried to the Infinite. No Heavenly maps or 
drawings. Reciprocal action of spirit and uni- 
verse. Ideas are eternal. Time the sign man- 
ual of human ignorance. Seating ourselves on 
the crown of a sun. Goodness the key to spir- 
itualistic power. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Scientific Spiritualism and Heavenly 

Powers 75 

When the spirit enters an infant. Material a cob- 
web. Penetrating the veil. Normal conditions. 
Intensest passions easiest to manipulate. Com- 
munication between spirits and men. Miliions 
of believers. Scientific spiritualism. Produc- 
tion of life. Life a mysterious force. Nature 
yields to a general law. One's standing in spirit 
life. Right for its own sake. Rewards. The 
"many mansions." The relationships of the 
heart. What is mind without form ? Choice 
of a palace or a cottage a matter of will. All 
past ages from which to select. A permeating 
light. Breathing life. Home in every place at 
once. Kindly attentions to weakness and igno- 



CONTENTS. 

ranee. The crown of goodness. The naturalist. 
The astronomer. The historian. The states- 
man. A dual unit. The spirit of our mate. 
Male and female mingled in one. 



CHAPTER X. 

Page. 

What is Unconscious Will ? 89 

An explanation demanded. Conscious and uncon- 
scious will. The invisible life of your own spirit. 
The spirit flees away intact. Presentiments. The 
senses of the spirit infinitely fine. What is 
intuition ? Illustration of unconscious will. 
The eternal idea. Application of eternal signifi- 
cance to observation. Prayer dominates invis- 
ible forces. 

CHAPTER XI. 
Mortal Mind 96 

Will and imagination. A strange communication. 
Emanations. Ghosts. Magnetism. The effects 
of mind. The Black Magician. Obsession. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Punishment 1 04 

Reading in Heaven. Memory absolutely perfect. 
The Alexandrian library. A royal road for a 
royal child. The "out" of Heaven. A germ. 
A rare spiritual phenomenon. Punishment of 



1 CONTENTS. 

the wicked. An eye for an eye. Natural pun- 
ishment. An unsafe doctrine. Torment for tor- 
ment. The universal sheriff. The punishment 
of Napoleon. Memory and contrast. Spiritual 
ignorance. Ignorance is not wicked. The sun 
of righteousness. The indestructible germ. 
Blotting out sin. Years of probation. Atone- 
ment on earth best. The task is not hopeless. 
This is all the hell there is. A Christian moth- 
er and wicked son. Does the angel suffer? 
Comfort beyond words. The " great gulf fixed." 
It is a fable. The Testament compilers bun- 
gling. No value in morals. No separation of 
place or portion. The Voice has lived in Heaven 
a thousand years. There is no hell. There is 
no everlasting punishment. Jesus not neces- 
sarily infallible. The Almighty veil. Chris- 
tians should be modest. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Page. 

Spirits Do not Tempt — The Celestial 

Body 124 

A morphine eater renewing his vice. An invisible ap- 
petite. Liars and hypocrites. An insult to man's 
moral nature. Christ a magnetic healer. No 
fear of intrusive spirits. The celestial body. 
Do young people retain their youth ? The cur- 
rent of Heavenly will. The change in us brings 
a desire for a change in our friends. The devel- 
opment like that of a rose. No disappointment 
in the land of satisfaction. 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Page. 

Opposing Creeds 129 

Jarring sects. The Calvinist. The Methodist and 
the Roman Catholic. All go to the same place. 
Love shows the vanity of dogma. A simple 
creed. The overwhelming No ! The Heavenly 
creed. Worship of the highest ideal. Christ 
still active. The Christ still able to atone. The 
Word in 1892. The name in Arabia. No sav- 
age neglected, forgotten or despised. Goodness ! 
Goodness the universal name. The higher 
goodness. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Dual Unit 136 

The Heavenly union. Individuality intact. Each 
absorbs the other. God's secrets. Mismating. 
The criminal code. The union of genius with 
unappreciation. Advantage to the man. Ad- 
vantage to the woman. Mutual advantage. A 
rule that should work both ways. Conscious 
and earnest love of God. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
A Curious Experience — Elementaries. 141 

A strange vision. A critical comment. No strug- 
gle. A rare phenomenon. A wholly unexpected 
explanation. Elementaries. Immortal, but not 
human. Its use. The life principle of the brute 
creation. Nothing is ever lost. Renewed friend- 
ship with animals. To will from the mass into 
the individual. No individual resurrection of 
animals. God's infinite solicitude. 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVII. p 
Re-incarnation — Childish Age 149 

Re-incarnation. Is it possible there is such a thing ? 
Re-incarnation of spiritual thought through a 
material medium. The Oriental less spiritual 
than the Occidental. Does goodness alone claim 
the highest Heavenly reward? Growth rapid, 
according to harmony of intellect and morality. 
Ambition for perfection the flower of knowledge. 
Heaven enjoyed according to each one's capac- 
ity. An entity attains individuality by means 
of an individual fleshly form. No necessity for 
re-incarnation. A description of the idea of 
Karma. The soul never lapses into the general 
mass. Why man was born. The essence of 
God illustrated by a crystal ball. The childish- 
ness of age illustrated. The spirits of the aged 
who " have lost their minds," leave the body. 
Testimony of my grandfather. Is there any re- 
lief from the shrinking from death ? A beautiful 
answer. The star of eternal life. The body and 
the spirit in a constant struggle. Nothing can 
disturb the spirit. Enjoy and spread joy. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Music, Art and Memory 168 

Music in Heaven. No instruments. Can spirits 
compose and play music? No such word as 
"ungratified." Music in Heaven is thought. 
Uttering oneself in violin tones. No need of 
implements. Thought takes form. Thinking a 
statue into form. Artistic utterance permanent. 
Mathematical morality. The will of the observer 



CONTENTS. 13 

the focusing point. A prophetic bugbear. Must 
our hidden histories be read? An unjust pro- 
ceeding. Sin, struggle, temptation, error, no 
part of spirit life. The protection of silence. 
Still more beautiful protections in spirit. Obe- 
dience a necessity and a desire. God sets the 
fashions. Visible advantage the result of all 
acts. We go as a whole, not in parts. The 
million daily drops of vicissitude. God helps. 
A diamond illustration. Punishment a benefi- 
cence. Memory the birth-gift of earth. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Page. 

Fear 182 

Fear is in its nature harmless. No "evil" an evil 
until abused. A new and unwonted freedom. 
Fear deals with the future. Religious fear an 
evil. The privilege of fear. Business fear. 
Fear of sickness. We can control forces by 
courage. Imparting vitality. The spirit is 
crushed in a person who fears. God's arm right 
around you. Victory ! Rational courage is 
power. Each thought an invisible influence. 
Sending out a strong force for good. 



CHAPTER XX. 
Astrology 192 

Astrology. Planets do not affect individual destiny. 
Successful predictions more than counterbal- 
anced by unsuccessful ones. The mind warped 



14 CONTENTS. 

and biased by astrology. Such superstition be- 
neath an immortal intellect. Re-incarnation 
false. Correct predictions not done by means of 
astrology. An explanation. Will Venus make 
a poet or Mars a soldier ? The craving to know 
the future. Illustration of the fallibility of as- 
trology. The secret wish. A Bermudian pre- 
diction. A shrewd reader of character. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Page. 

Providence 201 

Invisible compensations. Has prayer any effect ? 
To will is often to accomplish. Human life in- 
finitely varied. Prayer an effort of the will. 
Exceptional providences. No such thing as es- 
pecial providences. No direct interposition. 
Providences only applicable to material. The 
keynote of earthly prosperity. Miracles. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Thought 214 

Various beliefs as to what the Voices are. I do not 
answer my own questions. Thought. The 
Voices will impress the world. A shell endowed 
with God's thought. Space a place of confusion. 
A dead body goes into apparent nothingness. 
Sifting a motive. Is unuttered thought a force ? 
No general association of ideas. Can we prove 
the meaning of thought ? Projecting oneself. 
Strata of thought. Will thinking riches bring 



CONTENTS. 15 

riches ? Strataic thought forces. Evil thoughts 
cause war, revolts and crimes. Massed thought. 
Silent thought influences all. A fresh breeze. 
How did the Christ heal the sick? Christ 
healed by obedience to natural law. The spirit 
has no ear for evil. Spirits cannot respond to evil 
desires. Are spirits disturbed by mortal influ- 
ences ? Defiance of all natural conditions. We 
may explore the world as spirits. A traveling 
party. Plunging into the center of the earth. 
The mandate of love. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Page. 
The God-Soul of Man 230 

Especial care for God's children. You are God. 
No selfhood out of God. Many spirits have dis- 
appeared. Spirits as gods. Every soul shall be 
perfect at last. Is there a second death ? The 
queen-mother. The realm of divine holiness. A 
wall like precious stones. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Drama — A Day in Heaven 235 

Memory. Evolution of elements. Some planets 
are inhabited. Planets differ in glory. The 
human mind must discover material facts. The 
transcendent genius of men. One spirit a living 
link. Education in spiritual law. Scientific 
data. A satisfactory mission. Poetry, romance 
and affection. The drama. Dramatists and 



16 CONTENTS. 

actors. Actors act their own souls. A stage 
murder. To mortals death is the tragedy of 
tragedies. Interesting situations. Plots of facts. 
The supreme moment of love. The spiritual 
canvas. Evil disciplinary and remedial. Work 
out your own salvation. A strong stepping- 
stone. The negatives of Heaven. We shall 
be strong. The kernel of character. Growth 
and unfolding. Evil blotted out. Opera, ora- 
torio and orchestra in Heaven. The envious 
clock. Intercourse and society in Heaven. The 
shadow of desired privacy. Delightful occupa- 
tions. Day is infinite sight. Added powers. 
Farewell. 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



The Voices: A Statement of pact, 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE NARRATIVE BEGAN. 

'HE following narrative 
of what has now be- 
come a matter of intensest 
interest to me, will proba- 
bly be set down by 
most people as a 
work of the imag- 
ination; by others, 
as a superstitious piece of 
nonsense ; and by a few 
as a singular history of unusual phenomena. 
The philosopher, not finding anything infalli- The philos- 
ble in it, may shrug his shoulders in disgust; op er " 
the spiritualist, already prone to believe his . . 

very shadow is a ghost, will accept it with ualist. The 
eager ears; the thinker will theorize on the tllinker « 
possibility of psychometric impression ; the 
physician will speculate upon the state of the 

17 




18 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



The relig- 
ionist. 

The reader. 



stomach, the nervous system and the circula- 
tion ; the narrow religionist will declare it to 
be wholly of the devil ; and my reader, whom, I 
hope, is intelligent, poetic and comprehensive, 
may admit the truth, at least, of the story itself 
as actually happening, or seeming to happen, 
to me in the following way and order. I begin 
The Voices, the description of the Voices without knowing 
or dreaming how it will end; for in beginning 
I feel that I have only taken the first step, and 
they only know where they mean to lead me, 
or how far. 

Throughout my life, since I was about twenty 
years old, I have occasionally heard what I 
called Voices speaking to me. These Voices 
are distinct to my consciousness as a human 
voice, yet I realize that they make no sound. 
They speak in the English language, but I have 
often heard them speak a very decided brogue, 
a Scotch idiom, once in a great while some 
language I could not understand, and very 
often upon subjects with which I had nothing 
whatever to do, and with which I could not 
have any possible connection. I first began to 
notice these Voices as a sort of dual conscious- 
ness. I would be thinking in my own words, 
when I would suddenly stop short and listen 
A. telegraph to wnat was being said besides my own thoughts 
ne. — just as if a telegraph operator should be 



Dual con 
sciousness. 



HOW THE NARRATIVE BEGAN. 19 

sending a message and still listening to those 
which were being sent over the wires to 
her. 

If I was in New York I often seemed to 
hear the most laughable conversations going 
on between two Irish women, or between per- 
sons evidently of the lower classes; and I 
have often smiled at the exhibitions of human 
nature so unconsciously made to me. Again, 
I have heard conversations evidently not going 
on in this country at all, and while listening 
to them I would frequently get so strong an 
impression of the speaker that I could actu- 
ally see him. 

At one time I saw a young and an elderly 
military man, each dressed in English mili- 
tary undress, with cork traveling-hats covered 
with white canvas and wrapped with blue 
silk veils, talking to each other, as one lit a 
cigar and the other leaned against a big rock 
in the sultry sunshine of a day in India. India. 
They seemed near Bombay, but in the coun- 
try, and they were discussing some project 
connected with the Khedive of Egypt. This 
was some years ago, but these Voices, talking 
of a thousand things, acted in my conscious- 
ness as if I were a telegraph-wire over which 
constant messages flowed; and while I could 
often feel that they were going on, and some- 



20 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



friend: 



times get quite a consecutive bit, if I fully real- 
ized and tried to listen to them, I would, by the 
mere act of concentrating my attention, seem 
to stop the message, and I would lose the sequel 
of what was being done or said. 

So far, I distinctly recognized the Voices 
H n be- as tnose °f human beings still living on the 
ings. Absent earth. In many cases I have communed with 
absent friends, feeling conscious, and after- 
wards ascertaining, that their thoughts were 
upon me at that very time. In one instance, 
while in the night, the Voice of one whom 
I dearly cared for seemed for a long time 
to converse with me. This led me to infer 
that at times our spirits do leave our bodies, 
both when those bodies are awake and when 
asleep; for we go on, mechanically perform- 
ing our accustomed affairs, while our minds or 
spirits are far, far away, occupied with others. 
As time went on, I noticed a change in the 
Voices. They now impressed me as being the 
voices of spirits who had passed out of the body 
into the immortal life. Many and long have 
been my inward conversations with these spirits 
(if they be spirits), who have told me many 
wonderful things — things that it does not seem 
to me I could possibly imagine. 

To describe how I can converse in my mind 
with the Voices without getting mixed up, is 



Voices of 
spirits. 



Wonderful 
things. 



HOW THE NARRATIVE BEGAN. 21 

difficult. Of course, if I ask a question or make 
a remark I wait for a reply, as in any ordinary 
conversation. Many might think that my im- 
agination dictated these replies quite as much 
as it dictated the questions. But there is a 
strong and subtle difference — just as strong as A subtle dii 
is the difference between your own speech and ference - 
that of some one else. Besides this, I am by no 
means confined to tete-a-tete. Many talk, one 
after another. 

It was, perhaps, about two years ago, when 
the spirit Voices became occasionally familiar 
in conversing with me, and if I was " blue " 
or unhappy, many were the cheerful words 
they said. But it was not until the autumn 
of 1 88 — that I began to have such definite 
communications that I listened in astonish- 
ment. About that time a very dear friend 
died in a foreign country, and I at once was 
told that the Voices had an especial work for 
me to do. They also intimated that I was to 
be relieved of trouble and anxiety to so great 
an extent that nothing should materially inter- 
fere with this work. As it is now three years 
later, I may interpolate here that my life has 
run in an even current ever since. I have been 
at ease mentally and physically for the past 
period as I had not been for years. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PROCESS OF DYING, 




ERY much happened 
to me that absolutely 
precluded conversa- 
tion with the Voices 
until the winter set 
in and I was fre- 
quently alone in my 
chamber, often about 
dusk, before dinner, 
when, not yet having 
had the gas lighted, the dull glow from the 
coals sent out a gleam into the darkness. I 
had a fancy to sit so, thinking of many things, 
often attaining a state of quiet adoration of Him 
Who had afflicted me, and yet Who so gently 
drew my mind from a sorrowful to a cheerful 
Jontempla- contemplation of both past and future. 

It was then that I became aware of the appar- 
ent presence of that friend who had recently 
died, and while I did not really dare to believe it 
was he, yet I could but hope it was that manly 
and noble and true soul, which could never do 
or say aught but what would be wholly honest 
22 



THE PROCESS OF DYING. 23 

and good. In a mental tremble of hope, doubt 
and fear, I finally assumed to my own mind 
that the Voice was sometimes his that now 
spoke to me, and I ventured to ask him of 
himself. 

" Tell me," said I, " if you are allowed to 
do so, what death is like." 

" It is a natural process," said the Voice, 
" like birth, and like birth is an unconscious one. 
Being unconscious, it is painless and utterly Death pain- 
devoid of fear, and beinsr natural, goes on of les . s 1 an< J fle 

\ i -, i-i r VOld ° f fear 

its own accord without nelp or hindrance ot 
the person. Shall I describe to you what my 
own death was like ? You are correct in 
using the word death, from which spiritual- 
ists shrink; that is the name of the process, 
and might as well be used as any other. 
Well, then, when I died I was in no pain and 
had no fear. For some time during my illness 
I had been rebellious; I did not wish to die. 
I was in the prime of manhood, and I could 
not seem to bring myself to admit the right- 
eousness of it. But as time went on and I 
approached my death, I became more and 
more resigned, until I was at peace and even 
happy. 

" The moment of the actual separation of 
my spirit from my body is an absolute blank to 
me ; I know nothing about it. Of what hap- 



24 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



Awakening 
to conscious- 
ness. 



ight. 



pened to me after the time when I drew my 
last conscious breath on earth, I cannot say one 
word. When I awoke, however, to conscious- 
ness here, it was the same kind of conscious- 
ness to which I had been accustomed. I felt 
that I was I, and that I knew myself and what 
I was about. My first sensation was of light, 
pure light. This light was different from any 
of which I had been cognizant. It was brilliant 
in the extreme, more brilliant than any light I 
could have imagined, and yet it did not dazzle 
or annoy me. The whole surrounding atmos- 
phere seemed nothing but pure light, in which 
was no form, no line, no object of any kind. 
" My other sensations were those of infinite 
content, rest and peace. I seemed to be fully 
satisfied; I wanted nothing. I must have re- 
mained thus, bathing and basking in pure light, 
for some time. But at last I saw approaching 
me out of the glow, some faces. They were 
faces I knew — my mother, father, and many 
friends. As they approached I saw their bod- 
ies also. They greeted me with smiles, happy 
speeches and delightful welcomes, each vying 
to attract my attention and each saying some 
pretty or affectionate thing, with laughter and 
and happiness happiness beaming from every eye and lip. In 
a little while I felt myself rising. My friends 
had formed a group like a half circle, and 



Laughter 



THE PROCESS OF DYING. 25 

were moving back and up, their faces still 
turned to me, and each doing his or her best 
to attract my attention. They succeeded in 
doing so, for I was constantly replying to them, 
yet at the same time I was conscious that just 
as fast as they rose backward and up I was 
drawn lightly after them, without any volition 
of my own. 

" We seemed to move for an immense dis- 
tance at an immense speed, and as we did so 
I began to notice a gradual change in all the 
forms and faces. The farther we proceeded, 
the more radiant and beautiful they became. 
They began to scintillate colors, throwing out 
rays of many hues, and becoming so changed 
that had I seen them in that way at first, I 
should never have recognized them, for they 
were angelic and exquisitely radiant, and beau- An ange j lc 
tiful beyond all language. They were utter- change, 
ly different from what they were on earth, 
and from what they were when I first saw 
them. Yet strange to say, they each kept 
their individuality intact. I knew each per^ 
fectly and could not mistake them, any more 
than you can mistake your mother; and yet 
they did not look like anything I had ever 
seen. 

" By this I was taught that as we enter more 
and more the spiritual state, our spiritual con- 



26 AS IT IS TO BE. 

sciousness is opened. The more we throw- 
off the earthly nature the more we become 
enlightened in things above it. We finally 
reached the walls of Heaven." 

" The walls of Heaven !" I exclaimed; " does 
Heaven have a wall?" 

"You would call it such," answered the 
Voice; "it is a boundary. One might as well 
call it a wall as anything, in your language." 

" Well," I said, " if Heaven has a wall or 
Location of boundary, it has location ; therefore it is a place. 
Heaven. j thought it was a state, not a place." 

" It is both a state and a place," said the 
Voice. " At last we reached the state and 
place of < Heaven,' as you call it, and when we 
entered in — I cannot tell you any more. I can 
only say that they who led me grew even more 
magnificent." 

" If it is a place and has location, it must 
be somewhere," said I. " Is it millions and 
billions of miles away ? Is it outside of our 
universe ?" 

" It is a great distance away, as measured by 

your miles, and at the same time it is not sepa- 

Xear and rated from earth at all. It is right around you 

far at once. at the same time that it is an immense distance 

off." 

" How can that be?" I queried, nonplussed. 

"Because the communication between 



THE PROCESS OF DYING. 27 

Heaven and earth is literally instantaneous. 
There can be no separation of space where 
there is no separation of time; therefore, as 
there is no time and no space in the spirit 
world, a place can be away and near at the 
same moment. We are enveloped in an atmos- 
phere which is instantaneous in communication 
between any points, and nothing can be said 
or done on earth that is not known at the same 
second in Heaven. You may say that I used 
the terms of time to describe what is no time, 
but how else can I convey to your mind the 
ideas that are expressed so differently here? 
There is a constant telegraphy, as it were; or I 
can illustrate it by saying that when you touch 
a flame with your finger you are conscious of it 
in your brain, and so the material universe is felt 
in the spiritual universe, without the loss of the 
millionth part of a second." a second. 

"And you say it is a state as well as a 
place?" 

" Yes, but of that I cannot speak, simply 
because no mortal can understand it. To know 
how we feel, you must become one of us." 



Not a loss of 



CHAPTER III. 




LIGHT AND SPEED. 

HIS ended that chat, and 
it was some time before I 
had anything said to me 
of so astonishing a nature. 
I was speaking to the 
Voice of the light he had 
seen, and asked him what 
it was like. Was it like the sun, the moon, gas, 
electric, or what ? The Voice assured me it 
would be impossible to describe it, since it was 
unlike anything his mortal eye had seen ; yet, 
it was something like the soft flame of an Argand 
burner behind a porcelain shade, if one might 
imagine the flame multiplied a million times 
and the shade made of an opal. 

" But it is so difficult to understand this 
instantaneous communication," said I. " Do 
you mean to say that if you were in Heaven 
and I should call you, that you could be with 
me just as soon as I called, in actual presence, 
standing by my side?" 
"Yes, I do." 
At that moment I glanced out of the window 



LIGHT AND SPEED. 29 

There was no light in my room, and the rosy 
glow from the fire was its only illumination. The 
moon was just rising, and beside her shone a 
brilliant star. Now, one of my ambitions is to A blazing 
be able to visit other worlds. I am in great 
hopes to be able to do so if ever I become a 
spirit, and on seeing this magnificent star blaz- 
ing forth in its glory, I instantly questioned the 
Voice : 

" Can you go in a moment anywhere you 
please ? Can you go to that star ? ' ' 

I think a second elapsed before there came 
a reply : 

"Why, certainly I can." 

" And were you standing on some eminence 
on yonder star, could you still speak to me so 
that I could hear you?" 

" You hear me, don't you ?" said the Voice. 

"Why, yes," I answered, somewhat sur- 
prised. 

" Well, I am standing on the very star you 
pointed out. I came here before I answered ^ . 

r _ Hearing at 

you. Now, does n't this prove to you that there a distance of 
is neither time nor space in spirit ? Don't you ™]Jg ns ° f 
hear me and understand me as well as if I were 
beside you?" 

" I confess I do!" I exclaimed. 

" Well, I am beside you. I am touching 
you." 



30 AS IT IS TO BE. 

"What?" 

" Certainly. How long does it take your 
thought to travel to that star ? Not an instant. 
Well, spirit is even subtler and swifter than 
thought ; for human thought is ever limited by 
its environment of flesh, and must act through 
it. Immortal thought is unhampered by any- 
thing material and knows nothing of limita- 
tions." 

" Tell me again about the light you first saw 
as you awoke," said I, persisting in one idea, it 
seemed so fascinating. 

" It was a light so different from any material 
radiance that I cannot," the Voice answered 
patiently. " A man born blind may be told 
what light is like, but he can never really 
imagine it; so with you." 
" Do you eat there ?" 

The Voice laughed. " If we please, for 
pleasure !" 

"Then you are not obliged to?" 
" No. We live in an atmosphere of life, 
nothing but life. There is no decay, no loss, no 
ruin, no fading, no lack, no sense of want of 
any description. The air we breathe is life, 
vibrant, pulsing, dominant, active, all-surround- 
ing, all-sustaining, all-upholding. We cannot 
know pain or death, because it is the decay of 
the system that causes pain and death. We are 



LIGHT AND SPEED. 31 

always full in every part of intense life, and we intense life, 
exist in a state of joyous vitality." No fear# 

"Then you can have no fear?" 

" That is one of the sweetest things of our 
existence." • 

" Would you not be afraid to encounter a 
fire?" I asked, earnestly. 

" I should pass right through it," said the 
Voice, in an amused tone. 

" Pass through it !" said I, incredulously. 

" Yes, I have walked right through a fur- 
nace." 

I was silent from amazement. In a moment 
another Voice said, " He is gone," and in some 
way I felt that I was alone. 

I was at the theater with my mother one even- - 
ing, and was much interested in the audience, 
thinking of no spirit certainly, when the Voice 
said to me : " I am going to see the play with 
you to-night ; here I am, right beside you," and 
as an empty seat was next to mine, I involuntarily 
picked up my opera glass, which lay upon it, 
that my companion might sit down. 

On occasions too numerous to mention, and 
in the midst of all the daily affairs of life, the 
Voices have come creeping into my conscious- 
ness, with a sympathy and an understanding of Startling 
my inmost thoughts, as beautiful as startling. sympa ?• 
Often when my own spirit has been exalted and 



32 AS IT IS TO BE. 

purified by prayer, the Voices of many together 
have assured me of their approval, and declared 
that such communion with God is the very 
breath of success and happiness, here and here- 
after. 

Among other strange, I may say incompre- 
hensible revelations given me at this time, was 
the assertion by one of the Voices, that even 
before he died he had had communication 
with me, even while at a distance. 

" I did not recognize it then, any more than 
you did. I was not aware that I literally sent my 
spirit out of my body to you and used a mutual 
friend to express some of my feelings and senti- 
ments toward you. But it seems that I did actu- 
ally do so. I can hardly believe the fact that 
when still I was a living man, pursuing my voca- 
tions in a distant city, that this spirit, this actual 
I, used to leave that body and converse with 
you by animating the thoughts of our mutual 
friend, influencing him to go to you and using 
him as a medium through whom I could have 
An intangi- the pleasure of grasping your hand. Never- 
ble grasp. theless it is true, but it is a law of being which 

even now I do not pretend to understand, and 
when I became aware of it, it was as astonish- 
ing to me as it is to you." 

I studied this statement for a long time, and 
could but remember instances when it seemed 



LIGHT AND SPEED. 33 

to me as if there was actual communication 
between myself and my friends, without any 
visible means. Often I have been so thinking 
of the same thing at the same time, that letters 
of the same date, written by Mamma and by 
me to each other, would dwell on the same 
subject, and even seem to answer each others' 
questions. Again, I have at times, in meeting 
a person, seemed to see a new semblance, a 
phase of character not their own. 

" Then it is possible for a human being to 
throw the spirit out of the body to a distance ?" Throwing 
I said. the spirit to, 

distance. 

" Yes. Have you not many times been 

mechanically doing something, while your 
thoughts were earnestly and entirely absorbed 
with some place or person at a distance ? And 
if anyone suddenly startled you with a question, 
would it not take a moment to withdraw your 
thoughts from that distant object and turn them 
to the person at hand ?" 

"Oh! often." 

" You were laughed at for being absent- 
minded, perhaps. The word was no misnomer. 
Your mind, y©ur spirit, were actually absent and 
your body was actually vacant save of enough 
ethereal life principle and consciousness to keep 
it going. A cord of attraction still held your 
spirit in direct communication with it, yet was so 



34 AS IT IS TO BE. 

attenuated as to permit an actual absence of the 
dominant force. I have found this out since I 
came here, and I confess I have heard nothing 
that surprised me more." 

" Do you not suffer mentally when you 

Do spirits observe the grief of your friends ? Did you not 

iffer? p- t y me w } ien i W ept?" 

" I did not suffer, I was not unhappy, and 
yet I did sympathize with you." 

" How could you see me in anguish and not 
be pained?" 

" Because I see how little human grief is, how 
unreal, how baseless. You wept because you 
thought of me as dead, absent forever, lost 
until you should die yourself. Yet here I 
stood beside you, far more alive than yourself, 
and conscious of the absurdity of your grief. 
Yes, I know that even an imaginary grief is 
still a grief, but I could see how short-lived it 
would be — what a comparatively momentary 
affair your whole life would be until you came 
to me — and how certain you were to feel as I 
did when you did come. I felt as a mother 
feels who sees her baby sob over a broken toy. 
She knows baby will have a whole lifetime of 
sweet things ahead, and the toy is so small, 
such a nothing." 

" Then human life is, after all, a little toy, 
and if our friends die, we may feel that they 



LIGHT AND SPEED. 35 

have only broken a bauble," said I, bitterly. 

" To enter into the jewel life of princes," 
said the Voice. 

My serenity softly returned. And I notice 
that always, after a chat with the Voices, life 
assumes a more serene aspect. I feel that it is 
short but significant, and to be used as if it were 
endless. A vast sweep of ideas seems to be wait- 
ing for me to enter in on them, where, in majestic 
splendor of limitless beauty and grandeur, they 
swing around an eternal center. Ideas seem 
to assume form to my consciousness, and I 
vaguely feel as if every word was to be found 
symbolized in the spirit life. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE LAW OF ATTRACTION. 



Gentle re- 
proaches. 



sUgjjj 


ii> 



HAVE recently felt what I call a 
sort of spiritual dryness, a stagna- 
tion of the more intellectual and 
spiritual qualities within me, and I 
have aspired to no communication with the 
Voices, on account of various material cir- 
cumstances which I did not deem appropriate. 
But the other night I earnestly desired the 
presence of that delightful Voice which has so 
often cheered me, and I had hardly uttered in 
my mind the strong wish, before I heard it, 
reproaching me in most tender terms for the 
long time I had allowed to elapse since I had 
called on it before. 

" But have you not been with me, neverthe- 
less?" I asked, surprised at the expression that 
my banishment of it had been such a trial and 
its eagerness to approach me had been so keen. 
" Why, certainly not," it replied seriously ; 
" we cannot intrude upon you ! If you do not 
manifest any desire for us, we have no right 
and no power to seek you. We no longer 
belong to the earth or to the mortal state, that 

36 



THE LAW OF ATTRACTION. 37 

we should be governed by mortal laws, and we 
can only come to you when you send out your 
attraction in the form of a wish or a desire. 

" In spirit everything is governed by attrac- 
tion, mutual attraction. We may long, never so 
much to be beside you, but if you send out no 
attraction, if you do not think of or care for us, 
you literally banish us from your presence — 
aye, from even the very knowledge of you. 
Everything is reciprocal here. You seek us 
with a tender longing, and we instantly respond 
with an equal desire, like the two ends of a 
magnet, one positive, the other negative, with 
a constant current between, over which flow 
telegraphic communications." 

" I have often noticed," said I, " that you 
seem to dwell on the word ' attention ' in your 
descriptions of spirit existence. To attract 
attention seems to be one of the strong powers Attention a 
of that state, or indeed the manipulation of the stron S P ower - 
law of attraction." 

" Yes," was answered, " attention is one of 
the prime attributes of spiritual law. The mind 
or soul must be made to set attention on what- 
ever it wishes to accomplish. Attention is the 
basal quality of will. No one can will, posi- 
tively and successfully, without first profoundly 
setting the mind on the object of desire. It is 
for this reason that we must be obedient to the 



38 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



law of attraction regarding our visits to you. 
Unless you have us in mind to the extent of 
consciously or unconsciously willing us to 
come, we have no current whereby to approach 
you. You make a magnetic current by throw- 
ing your will out toward us, and we swim to 
you on its vibrating wave." 





moral; 



CHAPTER V. 

EVIL AND PURITY. 

RECENT conversation brought 
out this point in morals. I A point in 
asked (in effect) what should 
be the highest aim of a human 
being during this life. The 
answer was what one might 
have expected, but with a 
distinction. 

" It is, of course, to build 
up a perfect character. But to do this one 
should not so much endeavor to eschew evil, 
as to enlarge and develop good. It is more 
important to set the mind on doing and being 
good, than to set the will to resist and overcome 
evil." 

"Why?" 

"Brrausr, rofjsn ffj£ gxml sntes fljts 
mrjrlb if Brings miffr if nnlg fyz guniX 
OTfjB tml w rumplrfrlg pnrgrb away. 
Brjffjhtg rtnl ran rnfrr fyzxt. But the 

residue of permanent good may be very small 
and the spiritual vitality very low, so that the 
man or woman may be a very infant in his new 

39 



40 AS IT IS TO BE. 

life, and have to progress from the mere germ,, 
while he who has built up a large and noble 
character of good will take his stand as an 
adult." 

" But what is the difference ?" T cried. " If 
a man eschews evil, he is good, is n't he ? and 
if he is good, just so much good goes with him 
into the other world." 

The spirit laughed. " True in one sense, but 
let me illustrate : Have you not met apathetic, 
self-satisfied, quiet people, who moved through 
life without doing any positive evil, but also 
who did no positive good ? That is what Jesus 
meant when he spoke the parable of the ten 
talents. These people simply exist. They do 
not use their thirty or fifty years of life to any 
advantage. They do not grow; they do not 
The spark progress. The spark of spiritual vitality does 
of spiritual not become a flame ; it smoulders, amounting 
to nothing. In them evil is little, certainly, and 
there is little to cast off; but there is so little 
life of good, that they might as well never 
have been in a fleshly envelope at all, for all 
the status they gain here." 

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "that is very plain 
indeed." 

The Voice then spoke to me in a new way. 

" I am going to show you the symbol of a. 
pure, beautiful soul," it said. And presently I 




"consider the lilies." 



EVIL AND PURITY. 



41 



became aware ( although with my eyes closed, 
at night in a dark room ) of a lily. It was a 
very large lily. It had no leaves about it, but 
was the pure white blossom, standing alone on 
its stem, about twenty feet from me. But it 
did not continue simply a white lily. It turned 
into a sparkling silver lily, and soon seemed to 
pulse with throbbing life, its whole form vibrat- 
ing with seeming vitality and finally throwing 
off a silver radiance supremely beautiful. In 
my estimate, it was at least two feet high. I 
finally opened my eyes, and I saw and heard 
no more. 



The symbol 
of a pure soul. 




CHAPTER VI. 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 




Y CHATS with the Voices have 
increased of late, and I have asked 
them some questions about myself 
and themselves. 

" When you come back to me, thus entering 
the atmosphere of earth, do you re-assume a 
human form?" I fully expected they would 
answer, " Certainly," but instead of that they 
said " No." 

" What form do you assume?" said I. 

" I cannot describe it to you ; it is not like 
anything you have ever seen." 

" Is it round ?" 

" No." 

" Is it oblong or oval?" 

"Well, yes, somewhat so; it is permeated 
with light." 

" If that is so and it exists in an atmosphere 
of light, I do n't see how one can see it. What 
difference is there between an object absolutely 
permeated with light and the light itself?" 

" We have form enough to be individualized. 
You would, if you were in a similar form, rec- 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 43 

ognize me, but if you saw me with your mortal 
eyes you would not recognize me at all." 

" Where are you at this moment ?" 

" I am standing beside and bending over 
you." 

" And yet if I could see as well as hear you 
I should not see you with your former human 
resemblance of the body ?" 

" No." 

" To see you, then, you would have to what 
they call 'materialize ' yourself? Can that be 
done?" 

" I believe it can." 

" Did you ever do it?" 

" No." 

" Well, if you have no human form you have 
no human eyes; therefore, can you see?" 

"Yes." 

"And hear?" 

" Certainly." 

"And taste?" 

" We can taste if we please, but we do not 
often. Taste and smell are more animal than 
sight and hearing, and we endeavor to throw 
x>ff all the less spiritual qualities as soon as 
possible." 

" I can imagine that." 

" All the senses are wonderfully intensified ses are won ] 
here. We have a sense of smell a thousand derfully inten. 
times more acute than a human being." 



44 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" I should think that would be decidedly- 
unpleasant. I sometimes thank my stars that 
my sense of smell is not particularly acute." 

" That is because you are liable to smell un- 
pleasant odors. Here we cannot smell any- 
thing unpleasant, because all is eternal vitality. 
Unpleasant odors come from decay, disease 
and death. They arise from the refuse of na- 
ture, and are safeguards, warning humanity 
away from their dangerous proximity; but here, 
nothing but the odors of sweet and clean life 
obtain, and therefore no kind of smell can be 
obnoxious." 

" How about touch ?" said I. 

" Touch with us is contact of atmospheres. 
It is not like the shaking of two human hands. 
Imagine what it would be to be joined, united, 
intermingled with, and one with your destined 
The mate of mate, the love of your soul, yourself and not 
your soul. yourself, the man-spirit, counterpart of your 

woman-spirit — can you conceive of any greater 



joy 



" No. But if you have neither eyes nor ears, 
how do you perceive?" I went on. 

"Our perceptions are an universal cognizance 
of all things that can appeal to consciousness." 

" That, I should think, was a definition of 
God's powers." 

" One can be conscious of a thing without 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 45 

having the power to rule or dispose it, can one 
not?" 

" Certainly. I am conscious that the sun 
shines in the heavens, but I am not able to 
direct his course." 

" Very well, that is precisely our condition. 
We are aware of whatever attracts our atten- 
tion, but we do not presume to alter anything 
not given us to do." 

" And how do you find out how to make 
things attract your attention ?" 

" How do you find things attracting your 
attention on earth? Everything appeals in 
itself, does it not? You hear of things from 
every possible source ; your eyes alone hold 
your attention to a million things each day. 
But here we have the added power of getting 
knowledge by simply desiring it. To desire is 
to will. To will is to have. To have is to . T °wi 
know and understand, in this state of instant 
perception of truth. I would say that if we 
desire knowledge, we pursue it in natural se- 
quence. We study as gradually (though more 
simply) as you do in your books. We go on 
from step to step in any topic which we wish to 
master. 

" For instance, let Chemistry be the subject; 
we proceed to set our attention on any com- 
bination of matter, and the more intensely we 



have. 



five senses. 



46 AS IT IS TO BE. 

will to know, the more rapidly the processes of 
change in the arrangement and composition 
of matter go on, unfolding themselves to our 
understanding and perception, until the whole 
process is complete, and that branch of chem- 
istry is fully understood. It is demonstrated to 
what answers to the very eyes and ears, smell, 
More than taste and touch, besides other senses of the 
spirit, so that it becomes as familiar to him as 
his own new name." 

" You have used two expressions in that sen- 
tence which I do not understand. You speak 
of i other senses ' and a ' new name.' Now, 
what do you mean by these expressions?" 

" We have added senses, senses of percep- 
tion and conception, senses of will, of esti- 
mate, of deduction, of conclusion, all of them 
fingers of the mind, able to grasp ideas as you 
grasp objects with your hands. They are active 
and conscious elements of spirit life, moving with 
the same ease with which your sense of sight 
moves, and carrying the same conviction to our 
reason. You do not doubt the evidence of 
your own senses, do you?" 
"No." 

" Neither do we doubt the evidence of our 
senses, which assure us with equal precision of 
the stability of our conclusions. Reason, with 
you, consists of the conscious exertion of all the 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 47 

elements of logic. In the human form they 
are mere germs, and have to be manipulated 
slowly by constant comparison; but with us 
they become absolute. We can rely upon them. 
We do not have to constantly compare. What 
is, appeals to us exactly for what it is, in its 
every minutiae of attribute, and as there can be 
no untruth, no deception, or misappliance, or 
falsity, we know what we know, without fear, 
argument or doubt." 

" Let us go back a little," said I. " What 
is the advantage of this intensity of sense — as, 
for instance, the sense of smell ? What is the 
benefit of being able to smell a thousand times 
more acutely than a human being?" 

" The intensity is not confined to any one 
sense, and in all cases it is exactly graduated 
according to the strength and use required by 
the spirit who possesses it. For instance, also, 
we have the telescopic and the microscopic eye, The telescopic 
or perception, which is the same thing, and we 
can hear at the distance of millions of miles, or 
close by." 

" But if you can hear thus, what a jumble 
it must be ! How can you make sense out of 
it ? In one place the whirr of steam ; at the 
same time, on another planet, the roar of cy- 
clonic storm-winds; music in a thousand dif- 
erent places ; oceans tearing on a million miles 
of shore — " 



and micro- 
scopic eye. 



48 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Stop ! Do not speak such inharmonies. 
Nothing of the kind occurs. We hear by the 
law of attraction and attention, as we live by 
it. We hear what attracts us or we attract, or 
what we wish to hear only. Supposing we wish 
to hear an oration by a man on your planet. 
Do you suppose his voice would be submerged 
under an overwhelming billow of universal 
sound ? No. We should hear what we were 
attracted to hear, as you would, the rustle of 
the audience, the speaker's words, the environ- 
ment of human habitations; but, mark you, 
if we wished to visit a fiery world, bursting 
continually into deafening explosions, or swept 
by a demoniac roar of flame and fury, our 
Instant adap- strength to receive that impression would be 
strength to instantly adapted to the conditions, and we 
need. should suffer no pain nor inconvenience from 

what would strike you deaf for life. Or would we 
gather into our consciousness the viewless winds 
which blow around the four quarters of your 
world, or chase with unfaltering wing the min- 
istering angel who bears the chalice of God's 
love to bless your tiny sphere — behold, we fly 
on the pinions of immortal will, even to its 
boundaries. 

" Such is the dominion of spirit over matter. 
Such the power of everlasting life, unchangeable 
and perfect, over mutable matter, ever changing, 



* - m 

H 






k £ * 'V? F am 




WLw^m ■■ 


II 1 §1 


'■&:■'/■ W^-™- " raa ^^^S''- ; " '*-' 


Bet "^lp&- 




mW 










"•:; ..ML 


^^^^^E**./ %*HHfit ' ■ 




-- 

"J 


pp/jfej 


- ' -^'H 






B^-1^3HHMfl 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 49 

ever imperfect, ever advancing, ever receding, 
restlessly producing that eternal motion which is 
its basal law. Passivity in matter is impossible ; 
its very existence depends on its endless activ- 
ity. But spirit depends not upon activity for its 
existence ; it depends upon conscious will as the 
basal law — a will above and outside of itself* 
yet within and a part of itself also — and for 
this reason it remains in one condition as to its 
existence, resting passive upon the bosom of 
Infinity, irrespective of every mutation of mat- 
ter, and independent of it. And it is the intui- 
tive hint of this fact, caught by the sages of the 
ancient world, that has led to that doctrine of 
the absorption of the soul into the Godhead, 
which has become popularly known as Nir- Nirvana* 
vana." '~*—*a*i| 

" You certainly have made it very plain to 
me, and I think we have brought your state- 
ments up to date, if I may so express it, all but 
the meaning of the new name, to which you 
alluded. Now, what new name have you ?" 

" Many. Whereas in your language we were 
once called mortals, we are now called spirits; 
but that is only a general term, indicating a 
state more than a race. Individually we each 
assume a new name with our new conditions." 

"What for?" 

" If you went into a foreign land to become a 



of realities. 



50 AS IT IS TO BE. 

permanent inhabitant, using the language, and 
entering society as one of the same class and 
with identified interests, would you be likely to 
use your English name strictly, or would you 
gradually assume the accent and style of pro- 
nunciation which would always be given to it 
by those who were your companions?" 

" Doubtless I should gradually fall into their 
way of calling me." 

" So do we. The difference between human 
and spiritual language is radical. One is a lan- 
A language guage of symbols ; the other a language of real- 
ities. Your English is represented by a series of 
symbols and tones, which in their various com- 
binations represent your meaning, as the words 
are written or spoken. You have twenty-six 
signs, which do to express in their combinations 
the ideas you wish to convey; and, corresponding 
to those twenty-six signs, you have tones which, 
in their varied combinations, produce the same 
effect. One you recognize by the eye, one by 
the ear. You smell, taste and touch neither : 
and that is an illustration of the superior intel- 
lectuality of hearing and sight over the other 
senses, as I said before. 

" But we have a language of actualities, of 
realities, which needs no symbolization to be 
communicated one to the other. And as we 
are different in having a language not made 



SENSES OF SPIRIT. 51 

up of words, and not dependent upon signs, 
so we have also a new name ; as, for instance, 
my name, had it been John Anderson on earth, 
would not now be called John Anderson by my 
associates." 

" What would you be called?" 

The spirit smiled. I know it did. I could feel 
the smile just as if I had heard a laugh. " How 
can I answer you, child ! How can I tell you, 
when I must speak in signs, in language, to 
explain to you something which is neither, and 
which cannot be expressed therein?" 

" It was in Revelation," I remarked, "that 
the new name was spoken of. What kind of a 
product was that book ? Was it really a vision 
of heavenly things, or was it an allegorical nar- 
rative of past experience? Was it what we 
call an inspired work, or was it the writings of 
a man or men whose brains were a little 
turned? What authority should it have over 
our lives?" 

" None. It was not intended as a work on 
morals. It was simply an expose of the writer's 
individual conception of the Eternal life." 

" Did he hit the truth?" 

" More or less, yes. He was intensely intui- st. John in- 
tive for his age — at least the writer who so de- tensely intui- 
scribed the heavenly kingdom. Yet the book 
is deeply tinctured with the human prejudices 



The new 
name. 



tive. 



52 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



of the age and nation and the culture of his 
time. He also was necessarily inclined to 
Oriental symbolism in his expressions, and the 
result is that the work is almost useless to mod- 
ern investigation." 

"Still it was in a measure inspired?" 
"Yes; but he was an imperfect medium, 
and blended his previous education with his 
present discoveries. He had not an eye single 
to the propagation of pure truth." 

"Alas ! few perfect mediums can be found, 
I fancy," said I. 





CHAPTER VII. 

OUR CONDITIONS AND SURROUNDINGS 
AFTER DEATH. 

OME of the communications of 
yesterday were so fascinating to 
me that I could hardly bear to 
stop writing, but I was tired and 
gave it up. The last words ut- 
tered by the Voices was a courteous sentence, 
thanking me for my attention and for writing 
^or them. 

" You dictate to me now, it seems?" Spirit dicta- 

"Yes." 

Up to yesterday I had only transcribed the 
conversations occurring between us, when at 
night, or when sitting somewhere by myself, I 
have thought of the Voices and asked them 
some questions. But yesterday I kept right 
on, my pen flying at a tremendous rate, and 
I did not stop to see or think whether I was 
finishing a narrative or going on with some- 
thing new. I began again : 

" In the Johnstown disaster thousands of 
persons perished. They doubtless included a 
great many phases of character. Some were 

53 



tion. 



54 AS IT IS TO BE. 

intellectual, some brutal, some innocent, some 
sinful, some spiritual, some animal. Now, per- 
ishing all together, when each entered the new 
state of the spiritual life, what was the spiritual 
status of such ? How did they begin ? Who 
welcomed them ? Or were they left un wel- 
comed ? It was the transferring of a whole 
small town from one state of being into another. 
All went together — neighbors, cousins, brothers, 
minister and congregation. What became of 
them ? The relationships remained the same, 
the circumstances and environment were rad- 
ically changed. Can you explain this?" 

" Those people occupied the same status 
toward each other that they did on earth. The 
Changing of changing of state did not change their char- 
state does not acters# g ut t | iey are w idely separated as to 
change charac- _ J J l 

ter. condition. Many of them were sad, afflicted, 

poor, desolate and discontented on earth. All 
that is past. The children enter into a land 
of unspeakable beauty." 

" Are they separated from their parents ?" 

" No. There is no such thing as separation 
so long as there is attraction between spirits." 

" Can the parents follow them into that land 
of unspeakable beauty ?" 

"They can, but many of them do not yet 
desire it." 

" Where do they remain ?" 



SURROUNDINGS AFTER DEATH. 



55 



" They remain near their old homes, or seek 
out the homes of spirits whom they knew and 
loved." 

" That is what I wish to get at. Heaven, 
the land of beauty, is not shut upon anyone 
who wishes to enter it ?" 

" No ; but unfortunately most spirits, when 
they just leave the earth, do not seek or aspire 
to it. They still cling to the planet on which 
they were born as human, and do 
not at first rise to the conception 
or belief in anything higher. For 
instance, the farmer might return 
to his wheat field, the weaver to 
his loom." 

" But if they have spiritual vis- 
ion, I should think they could see 
that land, see their innocent chil- 
dren there, and fly after them." 

" They see only what attracts their atten- 
tion. They attract their children to them in- 
stead of going after them." 

" Well, that is what I call a slough of de- 
spond, and is in exact harmony with that 
despairing book called ' Light on the Hidden 
Way.' " 

" No, it is not a slough of despond; it is 
simply that as yet they have not progressed in 
spirit life." 




56 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



Progression 
instantaneous. 



Evil is whol- 
ly material. 



" How long does such a state of affairs con- 
tinue ?" 

" The progression is instantaneous and pro- 
ceeds more or less rapidly, according to the 
vitality of the germ — precisely like birth into 
your world. If the infant is weak, ill-developed, 
puny, sickly, it grows slowly and feebly at first, 
but after a little, with good care, becomes as 
well and strong as any child. So with the 
spiritual germ." 

" But meantime, how about the feelings and 
emotions of these weak ones ? Do they not 
suffer by comparing themselves with their 
friends ? Do they not despair of ever progress- 
ing, and sink back to earth in despondency?" 

" Such would be the case if evil and sorrow 
could ever enter here ; but I have told you that 
good, nothing but good, can exist here, and 
nothing but life, pure life, can fill the spirit. 
Now, however little may be the good and the 
life apportioned to a spirit, what there is of it 
is unadulterated by anything which can bring 
sorrow, for goodness and eternal life are joy in 
themselves." 

" Why can nothing but good exist in the 
spiritual state?" 

" Because evil is wholly material. It is an 
attribute of what you call nature, and is the 
opposite force which impels incessant action. 



SURROUNDINGS AFTER DEATH. 57 

Without evil the operations of the material 
world could not go on. Evil properly is not a 
malicious or malignant force ; but in its results, 
beneficent. But it is a force which may be 
abused by the conscious will, associated closely 
with a material envelope as a medium of power. 
Besides, the definition given to evil by humanity 
has always been by far too sweeping an one. 
An earthquake, a cyclone, a fire, a destroying 
of one race to build up another — these and a 
thousand other things like them, which are sim- 
ply the changes and mutations of nature, neces- 
sary to its very existence, have been designated 
by man as evils, when in fact they have all 
worked together for his good." 

" But what of spiritual evil — the evil of the 
mind, of the soul, which preys upon its neighbor 
and gains pleasure at the expense of another?" 

"There is no spiritual evil. Spirit is ever Spirit is evei 
pure, no matter what are its associations. It 
may be crushed out, it may be prevented from 
entering and progressing to any extent in the 
personal identity, but what does enter that 
human body is the saving germ which keeps it 
from utter annihilation." 

" What, then, is the evil that is unjust, un- 
true, murderous, thievish, and every way dis- 
honorable ?" 

" It is the survival of the earth element of 



pure. 



58 AS IT IS TO BE. 

basal force, the ingredient in the universal com- 
position which charged the mass with contend- 
ing forces and started the cosmos into active 
being. Evil of all kinds is elemental, and a 
necessary part of the order of things. Pie who 
is born of a savage race is far more full of this 
elemental passion than he who has come of a 
race which has cultivated itself out of and above 
the material, sufficiently to subdue and domi- 
nate it ; while he who has cultivated the intel- 
lectual and the spiritual in himself sufficiently 
to rule his body and his character, almost 
emancipating himself from the burden of the 
elemental attributes, has already half emerged 
into that state where the material is put off 
entirely, with the evil which belongs to it, and it 
alone." 

"It seems, then, that the punishment re- 
ceived by a person who has been inclined to 
evil all his life, yet still retains some mere germ 
of the spirit, is not an actual punishment of 
remorse, grief and anguish, but is simply the 
fact of his being an infant spirit, of less powers 
than his better friends and neighbors ?" 
Punishment " If a man knew what that meant he would 
sufficiently se- cons jd er it punishment enough ! " exclaimed 
the Voice. 

" What does it mean ? You will excuse me 
for thus mercilessly treading on your heels, as 



SURROUNDINGS AFTER DEATH. 59 

it were, in this new path of learning. I con- 
fess I do not scruple to make you prove a state- 
ment by asking you point blank questions." 

" It means annihilation of a thousand op- 
portunities for enjoyment which he might have 
had, if he had chosen to enter here with his 
powers strong and active. He can but realize 
his deprivation of magnificent, aye, glorious 
powers which would have led him into higher 
and higher joys, and also to know that, having 
taken no advantage of the chances offered him 
in the earth life, he has to begin at the foot of 
the ladder, and toilsomely make his way up to 
the level of his wiser associates." 

" But does this not cause him grief?" 

" No, not the kind of grief that you know. 
No spirit can ever be hopeless or doubtful. He 
knows there is no more death, and he feels 
within himself the promise of perpetual youth." 

" But if he is not attracted towards good ; 
if he prefers to remain passive?" 

" Do you think he is left alone ? Without 
teaching or help ? Do you leave a babe alone, 
and give him neither care, food nor shelter? 
Does even an animal neglect her young, and 
leave it to perish of ignorance, inability or help- 
lessness? And are we, who live in an atmos- An atmos- 
phere permeated with the light of God, less £ e wl ^ 
tender or less just or generous than the lion or light of God. 



60 AS IT IS TO BE. 

the tiger ? No soul is ever left to its own ina- 
bility or ignorance. It is aroused and helped, 
fed and clothed with knowledge and truth, 
until its past career of evil on the earth is so 
blotted from its consciousness that the earth 
life becomes like a dream — of no meaning or 
moment, save as the embryo stage of a progress 
which it has forever left behind." 

" I hope this does not occur while one of 
its loved ones remains still in the flesh." 

" Ah ! I was speaking then of ultimate, not 
immediate things. With us time no longer 
tells. We see forward and backward at once, 
and the episode of the earth life seems but a 
day amid days." 

" Speaking of ultimatums, I suppose the ulti- 
matum of all progress is to see and be one 
with God. You know it is written, ' The pure 
in heart shall see God.' " 

" Yes." 

" You remember who spoke those words, do 
you not ?" 

" Yes. ,J 

" Who was he ?" 

" He was a Jew, a messenger, a prophet, a 
seer, a being of singular powers and singular 
mission." 

" Was he simply a man ?" 

" We believe he was the Son of God, exactly 
as he said." 



SURROUNDINGS AFTER DEATH. 61 

" Did he ever teach that he was the Crea- 
tor ?" 

" No ; you cannot find such an expression." 

" He said, ' I and My Father are One.' " 

" That is true, and so they were one, yet he 
was not the Original Cause, as the word ' Father ' 
indicates. They were one in purpose — just as 
you and I are one in purpose : you to hear 
and execute what I say and give you to do." 

" That is a magnificent illustration. 
But let us drop theology for awhile," said 
I. " I want to know about the relationships of _ The rela- 
Heaven. I want to get some kind of an idea Heaven 5 * 
what my home is going to be like. All these ideas 
of space and endless time and infinity are not 
cozy and homelike or human. In thinking of 
myself solitarily roaming about space, with- 
out a settled place to go home to, I feel a sense 
of lonesomeness, even horror, which kills out 
all desire to go." 

" Do you think, then, that we are in a con- 
stant state of wandering over creation ?" 

" Why, I don't know — I don't know any- 
thing about it. My idea of intense satisfac- 
tion on earth, is to have a lovely and artistic 
home, with my dear friends about me, leisure 
to study, money to travel, good health and 
good morals." 

" You can have all these here, if you wish." 



62 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" What ! A home of my very own, where 
I can be as hospitable as I wish and still find 
leisure to pursue knowledge and progress in 
mind and soul ?" 

" I see no reason why you should not have 
all these things, and many more." 

" Very well — I do not want them — no, I 
will not have them, unless the meanest human 
being shall also share them, or obtain their good 
wishes equally with myself. I realize Eternity 
enough for that ! If I thought one poor miser- 
able soul were to be shut into ' outer darkness ' 
while I sat inside enjoying myself, I could not, 
I would not rest until he too came in." 

u My rl;ilb, ffjaf is jusf fyt roqj eoBry 
spirit feds from (Bob boron." 

I must say that this speech made me draw 
a breath of relief. It taught me to believe not 
the worst, but the best of God. For if I, in my 
mere mortal impurity, can feel no joy in the 
thought of my own salvation while another suf- 
fers deprivation and sorrow, what must He be, 
far-reaching and abundant as is His beautiful 
love ? 

" Do you wear clothing?" 

" We are clothed upon with immortality." 

" What does that convey ?" 

" Light is our element, and in different de- 



SURROUNDINGS AFTER DEATH. 63 

grees of light we are clothed. Yes, we are in 
colors and in different shades of color. We 
will our clothing as we please, yet there are 
some who have not a choice — those who have 
not yet learned to will." 

" What do they wear ?" 

"Their simple immortality as a garment." Immortality 

" Has immortality color or form ?" a garment. 

" No, not as you mean it. You mean to be 
a little sarcastic, and ask if immortality is act- 
ually a coat or a dress. But we know what 
mere immortality is without the exercise of 
conscious will, and the former is distinct from 
the latter." 

" Many beautiful things are mentioned in 
Revelations, as for instance, precious stones. 
Now, can one wear precious stones in Heav- 
en?" 

" If we were to have precious stones, why not 
all kinds of follies and fashions ? Do you think 
a spirit delights in material combinations of 
silks and satins, feathers and ribbons? They 
may be used as symbols — but child, you wish 
to make a heaven as material as your earth." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



IDEA-FACTS. 




LL these months, and not one written 
word of the Voices ! I have been 
far to sea and back again, and ex- 
perienced many new scenes, met 
new people, and have added to my knowledge 
of the world one of its beautiful tropic islands. 
During this time I have not been deserted by 
the Voices, but I have kept no record of what 
they have said to me, save in memory, which, 
thank God, is as good for conversations as it is 
bad for dates and names. Of all, however, 
that I have heard from them, little has been 
of more than personal interest. What has 
been otherwise, I will faithfully recall. The 
fault has lain wholly with my surroundings. 
I had neither leisure nor opportunity to think 
nor listen. But once I questioned : " Could 
you tell whether a man would die, supposing 
he were ill ? Do you know when any one is 
going to die?" 
The issues The answer was : " The issues of life and 

dLt^ and death are in the wil1 of the Creator - We can- 
not, any more than when mortal, tell when a 

64 



IDEA-FACTS. 65 

child is to be born or a mortal to die. He 
alone knows from Whom come both life and 
death. It is His secret and we cannot pene- 
trate it." 

" I think I asked you about birth and the 
embryo of a human being, and you said, some 
time back, that the spirit enters into a child 
the instant God forms the idea of that child ; 
that it does not have to become an actual 
material fact before it is an individual spirit." 

" The idea is the fact. The material form 
is only the manifestation of that fact. When 
God originates a new idea, then a new fact has 
been uttered; and the mere putting it into a 
visible form is but the throwing a filmy mantle 
around a statue." 

" And do spirits also utter facts in the way 
of ideas?" 

" Not as creative. Creation belongs to the 
Infinite; combination to his creature. We 
may manipulate ideas when once He has 
uttered them, but no one can originate the 
smallest truth." 

" But how can ideas or facts be recognized Idea-facts, 
as such, unless they do actually become mani- 
fested in some form ?" 

" They are not so recognized, nor intended 
to be. They each do assume form, from the 
grasses of the sea to the stars that shine above 



66 AS IT IS TO BE. 

the waves. The practicality of God is one of 
His infinite perfections. He no sooner con- 
ceives an idea than He puts it to definite use. 
Were we to be able to cognize ideas before 
God had uttered them, we should be able to 
read His mind. No; all I wish to teach you 
is that ideas are facts in themselves, while the 
transient transmutation of them into a material 
form does not affect them one way or the other. 
They are as real out of form as in form. They 
The play of are the play of that Almighty Intellect which 
Intellect 11 forever throws out, in undiminished splendor, 

abundant and eternal, new conceptions, which 
instantly take their place and appointed station 
in their destined order, not swerving so much 
as a hair from the law of harmony, which is 
rooted in the Godhead itself. 

That you have entered into an envelope of 
flesh upon a diminutive planet to exercise, in the 
majesty of freedom, that will and imagination 
and reason given to your portion of Him, is not 
of particular consequence. Had you never been 
born, you would still have been a fact, no matter 
into what shape you were transmuted. If an- 
other planet had been your transient abiding- 
place, or had you slumbered on in indistinguish- 
able night up to this moment, you would still 
have existed as a fact, an idea, since He uttered 
you, and nothing henceforth could annihilate 



IDEA-FACTS. 67 

you. As it happened, you fell into the order of 
the humans (or, I should say, as He disposed of 
your idea that way), you now possess the attri- 
butes of humanity, and proceed on forever 
from that level of being. If, however, it had 
not been so, your entity would still have been 
a fact." 

" I cannot understand that. If I am an 
idea-fact, it must be an idea-fact of a human 
being, not an idea-fact of a dog, or a tree, or a 
drop of water." 

" You do not understand it, because it is so 
hard to make you comprehend what an idea is. 
To you an idea must have form. It must 
allude to something visible, or to something 
that has come within the imagination or experi- 
ence of man. You say you have abstract ideas 
which are not reducible to form, but you will find 
that even your most abstract idea is depend- 
ent upon a train of logic that is based on expres- 
sion, manifestation, in some way or another. 
Why, an idea must have words to be conveyed 
to your minds at all. To us an idea is a reality, 
known absolutely without the appendage of 
any form at all. And when God utters an idea, When God 
it is a second process to put it into form, yet utt ers an idea, 
we are cognizant of it before that second proc- 
ess is begun." 

" Can you not illustrate this ? I find it still 
vague." 



68 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Yes. Do you not know that you can take 
a letter which you never saw until that instant, 
from a person you never heard of, and without 
perceiving so much of the handwriting as a 
single word, can place it upon your forehead, 
and almost instantly tell the writer's character 
without a failure ? Do you not instantly say, 
* sentimental, dreamy, poetic, fond of silence,' 
etc., as the case may be ?" 

" Yes, I have done it many times, but I 
never knew how I did it, nor do I understand 
it at all." 

"What was it that came into your mind 
before you uttered the word 'sentimental?' 
Was it anything with a form ? Did you recog- 
nize it as anything that you had ever seen or 
heard? Or was it an instantaneous cognizance 
of something to which you involuntarily gave 
the name of ' sentimental ?' " 

" Why, it was an intuition which amounted 
to a fact, for the word ' sentimental ' actually 
uttered itself to express it." 

" There ! Now you yourself have described 
an idea. Your spirit was sufficiently awake to 
be what you call intuitive, but what we call 
normal enough to know an idea-fact before it 
was reduced to form. You yourself gave it 
form in the word 'sentimental,' with which 
you described a phase of the writer's character, 



IDEA-FACTS. 



69 



but which existed and would exist, whether you 
had ever noted it or not, as a fact, formless yet 
real." 

" And you say that a spirit can perceive and 
understand an idea as soon as it has been 
uttered and before it assumes any definite form ? 
Is not the utterance of an idea an expression 
of an idea, and is not an expression a form?" 

"You would carry me into the infinite. All 
I can explain, and all I wish to make plain is, 



X 




that if God had formed the idea of a new 
palace built by the side of the river Thames, 
that, before it had assumed form, before a stone 
was quarried, or an architect had conceived a 
line of it, or the first notion of it had dawned 
in the head of the man who would choose to 



70 AS IT IS TO BE. 

build it, we coul'd know it and conceive of it 
and acknowledge it to be a fact — as immutable 
as the fact that the palaces of the kings of 
Egypt did once exist by the river Nile. Nor are 
there Heavenly maps, nor Paradisaical draw- 
ings and specifications by which we could look 
forward to its completion. The only form it 
would be in would be the w T ill of God, which 
we all know, by heart and by soul, and by love 
and by joy, the moment it acts." 

" It seems to me, then, that a spirit is prac- 
tically omniscient." 

" It is, according to its capacity of will, 
attraction and attention. That is all. We do 
not know everything that will happen or has 
happened. All we know of either is what 
attracts us or we attract. We act on the uni- 
Reciprocal verse and the universe acts on us reciprocally. 
If, for instance, we had the building instinct or 
taste, there is nothing whatever to hinder our 
knowing about all the buildings that have been 
built, or all that will be built, so far as God has 
willed them. As long as we pursue the knowl- 
edge of building, we can have the whole field 
of the past to study in. The fact that a build- 
ing has crumbled to material ruin is no hin- 
drance whatever. The material manifestation 
was but the clothing of the idea. The idea 
still exists, for the idea is spiritual and eternal, 



action of the 



IDEA-FACTS. 71 

and we recognize an idea, as I said before, 
without the need of a physical expression." 

" But does not all this take time ? Can you 
cognize ideas to the very end in all their mul- 
titudinous variations all at once?" 

" The knowledge comes in succession, cer- 
tainly. We progress from one point to another." 

"But what is succession, what is progress, 
but the using of time ? Yet you say there is 
no time in the spirit world." 

" Time is a man-made division of light and 
darkness. Time is a man-made measure of 
space. The fact that man is limited by a 
body which cannot move at will with the 
rapidity of thought, has forced him to measure 
out the interval which it will take him to get 
from one place to another, and he -calls it an 
hour or a day. Time is the sign manual of 
human ignorance. It is the limit set by God 
to the intellect of mortality. If you eliminate 
time you eliminate space, and conceive, as we 
do, of eternity. But no; by comparison you 
live, move, and have your being. You com- 
pare the future by the past, and the present 
with both. You cannot think of anything with 
neither beginning nor end. If you draw a cir- 
cle, even in your imagination, you begin it, 
and when the line comes around again you 
end it. Therefore to you, one thing after 



round of the 
finite mind. 



72 AS IT IS TO BE. 

another means a series of moments. Progress 
means a series of actions through a series of 
stages. Cause and effect, and time to do it in. 
The small This is the small round of the finite mind. 

But to us time is neither yesterday, to-morrow 
nor to-day. Now is all there is, and all is in- 
cluded in Now. And all will ever be included 
in Now. Our advancing in the attainment of 
ideas is but a manipulation of the ever-present 
Now, which neither alters nor changes as 
to its verity. The manifestations of ideas in 
myriad forms, and our becoming cognizant of 
them, requires no comparison of either time or 
space. We do not say, ' Last year I was a 
million miles from here!' If we had been a 
million miles multiplied by a million miles, we 
should still have been just where we are, and 
where we have been, and where we shall be — 
in a state of being which is everywhere at once, 
and therefore without possibility of calculation 
by any kind of measurement. In so far as we 
are spirit we eschew limitations, and the nearer 
we approach perfection the more unfettered we 
become." 

" Well, even although I am fettered and a 
mortal, I don't see practically why I am not in 
the Now as much as you are ! I am, it seems, 
the mere physical manifestation of an idea 
which is in verity an eternal fact, so I don't see 



non-ex- 



IDEA-FACTS. 73 

why I am not actually enjoying the freedom 
from space and time as much as you are." 

" Just so far as that idea acts in you, you 
are. It is not the fact, but the comprehension 
of the fact in which you are lacking. And 
even you have the comprehension of the free- 
dom of your thought, for in an instant you can 
send that thought to the planet Venus, or to 
the isles of the sea you have just quitted, and 
all this without the slightest difficulty or effort, 
and without the slightest necessity for measure- 
ment, either of time or space. Thus you can Time and 
prove my statement in your own mind, that it ?P ace 
is for the convenience of material conditions 
that man has invented the clock and the yard- 
stick. 

Mental conditions, even as imprisoned in 
a brain, do not need these arbitrary rules. You 
leap beyond almighty depths of material space 
the moment you turn your eyes to the heavens, 
and by a ray of light which, being material, 
has taken ages to reach you, seat yourself in- 
stantly upon the crown of a sun to which your 
own is nothing. This is already your power 
while yet you crawl in ant-like insignificance 
upon a dark and fleeting orb. What think you 
then, must be your powers when, spurning the 
material, you spring into the spiritual, partaking 
in full of all your soul craves, and freed from all 
that was gross in your condition ? 



74 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Would that man could once know the infinite 
value of what he so values — time. To him time, 
to live a little longer in, to pursue his pleasures 
in, to snatch from the Unknown another hour 
of foolish existence, is the one desire. What is 
its true value to him ? To cultivate, to build 
up every longing into a conscious willing of 
righteousness, to add an hourly desire to rise, 
to expand, to broaden in every fibre of his 
mind, and most of all, to imitate the unlimited 
love and generosity of his Maker. Those who 
gain the most good soonest attain true spiritual 
powers. Tell that as a fact, an idea-fact, 
expressed." 



CHAPTER IX. 



SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUALISM AND HEAVENLY 
POWERS. 

E good enough to tell me if 
there was ever a human be- 
ing who did not even con- 
tain a single spark of 
goodness." 

" No; positively no, 
not even an embryo in- 
fant." 
When does the spirit enter 
into the infant form?" 

"I have told you that the 

spirit begins on the conception 

of the idea in the mind of Eternity." 

" The idea then, I suppose, is the 

determining power and not the act 

of physical union ?" 

"Why, of course. The act of 
physical union would be fruitless 
were it not determined by the will 
of God to be fruitful. If the idea of 
the babe is uttered, it is permanent, and finds 
its expression in a physical form as His law 
determines. Material, the expression or result 

75 




76 AS IT IS TO BE. 

of idea, is transitory. Matter alone originates 
nothing. It is the spirit which animates, not 
any other power. The union of two portions 
of matter produces no vital result without the 
spirit to vivify such union. To you, that which 
appeals to your senses is substantial and certain. 
To us it appears as a film, a cobweb, woven 
across the face of infinity." 

" Then, as the Christ said, or, perhaps, St. 
Paul, ' here we see through a glass, darkly, but 
there, face to face.' It is then that the material, 
which, after all, is but a slight barrier, stretches 
as a veil between us and reality." 

" You are quite right." 
Can the veil " Can that veil be penetrated by a mortal ?" 
be penetrated. "Are you not doing it in some measure?" 

" Hearing is not so satisfactory as sight." 

" Mortals have even seen." 

" What state is a mortal in who sees ? A 
normal state, as I am in this minute?" 

" Were you in a normal state when you saw 
the lily ?" 

" Why, yes, I certainly was. I am as sensi- 
ble this moment as I ever am, and I was then. 
But I have always heard that clairvoyance is 
accompanied by a lethargic state — trance, coma, 
or whatever they choose to call it. Is such a 
state of body necessary?" 

" No and yes. It depends upon the person. 



HEAVENLY POWERS. 77 

You are affected by simple, plain impressions 
on the brain. These need not alter your phys- 
ical or intellectual powers. Indeed, the fact 
that you sit intelligently recording our conver- 
sation, proves that. Others are impressed in 
their emotions, imaginations, sentiments, pas- 
sions, predilections, the intensest of these being 
the weakest to resist and the easiest to manipu- 
late. The predominant force in you is reason, 
and it is easiest approached and moulded into 
the forms of truth. 

Much of the reasoning in the world is 
wholly wrong because it starts from false prem- False prem- 
ises. The material so dominates the imagina- lses " 
tion that the will becomes obstinate and refuses 
to admit ideas outside of that realm. To such, 
a communication like this would seem impos- 
sible and therefore fraudulent. You will in all 
probability never see the symbolical expression 
of spirit life, unless under the most favorable 
conditions, which rarely occur. Others could 
not hear the Voices, which so readily impress 
you." 

" In all this you tacitly admit that there is 
actual communication between the mortal and 
the spirit life going on?" 

" There certainly is a constant and advan- 
tageous exchange of influences, both recognized 
and unrecognized. They are visible and invis- 
ible, open and silent." 



78 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Can this be increased so that the majority 
of people can receive communications from 
that other world ?" 

" Its increase is already rapid. Never in 
the history of man has there been such an 
awakening to the truths of spirit. It only lacks 
someone with sufficient power to demonstrate 
that truth fully, openly and without the slight- 
est secrecy or concealment, to gain millions of 
believers already anxious for a confirmation of 
their faith." 
A prophet. "And will such an one appear?" 

" In due time. And, meantime, many like 
you will give a foretaste, in words pregnant 
with authoritative truth. There must be a revo- 
lution of ideas concerning death. Men must 
learn to think no longer that it is a thing of 
horror." 

" Has not the fear of death and the mystery 
in which the after-life has been wrapt acted as 
a deterrent force to the evil within him ?" 

" Certainly, up to now. But the world is, 
say what the pessimists may, gradually evolving 
into a more spiritual state, and is therefore more 
capable of demanding and receiving spiritual 
truths. Among the more intellectual classes 
you will find this great question of Scientific 
Spirituality, or the science of spirit, being dis- 
cussed in a hundred forms; and even the most 



HEAVENLY POWERS. 79 

steadfast adherents of the material philosophy 
must and do admit that there is a law, a power, 
an invisible force outside of itself which lies at 
the base of and wholly vivifies matter. 

Indeed, they do not deny it; but coming 
to the point where life ends and death begins, 
when asked: 'What is this life? Whence 
comes it? Out of what is it born?' they an- 
swer, so far as any tests or possible conclusions 
from tests are concerned : ' We do not know. 
It is certainly not a property of matter, yet we 
recognize its existence ; we cannot properly 
trace or define it; we cannot produce it, yet 
there it is.' " 

" Why, life can be produced by the union 
of matter under certain conditions." 

" The result of the union of two bodies of 
matter under certain conditions is the entering 
in to such an united body, the principle of life; 
but where that life comes from, or what causes 
it to enter, or how long it will remain after it 
has entered, you neither know nor can predict. 

You may set a hen on two eggs, each 
properly impregnated as to natural conditions, 
and one hatches out a chicken and the other 
addles. There is no visible difference in the 
eggs in the first place, but the mysterious force a mysteri- 
refuses to enter one egg and willingly enters the ous f° rce - 
other. Now, is there a man or a mind, how- 



80 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



Lack of 
righteous- 
ness, lack of 
power. 



ever powerful, that can command that both 
shall hatch ? No. No spirit even shall dare 
to command it. The issues of life are in the 
will of God, and extend from the worm to the 
highest organism ever created." 

" Yet that force, after all, seems a compliant 
force, or else amenable to law; for it is not 
difficult for the pigeon-fancier to breed new 
pigeons, nor the bee-keeper to increase his 
swarm. Nature is generally to be relied upon 
in this matter as well as in others. She yields 
to a general law that seems to run through all 
her works." 

" True, and the complaisance of God, with 
His untiring energy of love, seldom disappoints 
the confidence reposed in it." 

" Do you think a full knowledge of what the 
spirit life is would be conducive to the benefit 
of the world?" 

" There can never be full knowledge. There 
can be approximate knowledge ; enough to im- 
bue humanity with newer and higher aims, and 
different and more righteous ambitions. When 
it is fully believed that one's standing in spirit 
life absolutely depends upon the righteousness 
of one's character, and that a lack of righteous- 
ness is the lack of every possible advantage, 
men will be as anxious to accumulate goodness 
as now they are to accumulate wealth. Here 



HEAVENLY POWERS. 81 

goodness is wealth. But they must believe it 
absolutely. And to teach this, to prove this, 
will be a great mission." 

" I am not satisfied with that kind of moral- 
ity at all. The idea of punishments and re- 
wards was always obnoxious to me. I feel that 
the only true goodness is goodness for its own Right for its 
sake, with no other motive whatever than do- own sa e ' 
ing it because it is right. Right for its own 
sake, irrespective of results, is my ideal of pure 
truth, and I think whoever sets his standard 
lower than that, errs." 

" Yet facts are facts. The man who builds 
up the strongest character of righteousness in 
the human life is the man who stands highest, 
has finest powers and noblest joys in our life. 
Do you mean to say that teaching a child to 
be good because that goodness will win the ap- 
proval of God, the esteem of society, the peace 
of his own conscience, the enlargement of his 
intellectual powers, and the usefulness of his 
existence, thus bringing inevitable joys of a rare 
character to his experience, is setting before 
him a system of rewards ? Why call them re- 
wards ? They are natural sequences and pro- 
gressions in the line of pure right, and carry in 
themselves ample pleasure and constant de- 
lights. I did not mean to infer that the righteous 
man should have a more luxurious ' mansion ' 



82 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



than his neighbor. I meant that harmony with 
right gathers to itself all the powers of God, and 
these advantages are commanded by him whose 
motives are purest and most unselfish." 

Ah! the wings of my rea- 
son and my imagination flag. I 
droop under the abstract ideas 
you give me. I am a wom- 
an, with a woman's affec- 
tions and desires, and when 
you say the word 'mansions,' 
I think of the ' many man- 
sions ' prepared for us of 
r |g2= which Jesus spoke, and I 
long to know something of 
' them, something of the 
domestic, the affectional 
side of a life I too must 
enter. I cannot bear 
to think that existence 
in spirit is a bare existence 
of mere ideas, or idea-facts, 
which sound to me so cold, 
so intellectual, so logical ! 
What is the relationship of the 
heart there? What are the treas- 
ures of the happy soul ? What do people do ? 
How do you occupy your time ? Are you 
isolated or in groups? In families or com- 




HEAVENLY POWERS. 83 

munities ? Are there arts and sports and laugh- 
ter and fun and merriment as on earth, or are 
you all in some misty atmosphere like that 
poor ghost spoken of by the poet, who wrote 
of ' twilight land,' of 'no man's land,' who did 
not know what he was, for ' he only died last 
night ?' 

Can anything be more weird, more ghastly 
than a feeling that spirits are nothing but mind? 
What is mind if it has no form ? An idea, you 
will say, and ramble off into more abstractions. 
Pardon me, but as yet I do not feel at home 
with you. I don't know who you are, or where 
or how you live. Give me some definite hold 
for my imagination. In two words, make me 
a pen picture of your home." 

" We make our homes where we please ; it 
may be in the country or the city. We build 
them out of id' 
which, as I told you 
before, are the 
only realities. J 
There can be 1 
no envy of v 
a man who M 
chooses to bui 
himself a palace, when the next man can do 
the same thing if he pleases. So, if we prefer a 
palace, we build one, or if we wish a pretty 




84 AS IT IS TO BE. 

grotto covered with vines, it is ours. Poetry, 
painting, architecture, sculpture, carving, music, 
color, every art you know and many you can- 
not conceive of, are brought into requisition for 
the adornment of our homes. 

If you see on earth a diversity of taste 
among the wealthy, in the style of their dwell- 
ings or the furnishing of their apartments, how 
much more might you expect in us, who have 
all past ages to select from or copy and all 
future improvements to anticipate? But there 
are so many things that are necessary to you 
which we neither require nor miss. To you a 
message call, burglar alarm, electric lights, steam 
heat, sewing machines, are all luxuries or neces- 
sities of profound benefit. But of what use are 
all these things to us ? 
Thinking We have but to think our messages ; cer- 

messages. tainly no thieves break through and steal here ; 
our light is a light permeating all things or 
shadowed at will; our atmosphere is neither 
hot nor cold; our garments are the emanations 
of our own fancies. 

Again, a house unprovided with a fine cook 
is a poorly arranged home on earth, while here 
we need no manipulation of material to sus- 
tain life; we breathe it — we are it, and only 
to gratify a passing fancy or a fleeting remem- 
brance of our former existence on earth, should 



HEAVENLY POWERS. 85 

we will into being the richest dish that ever 
tempted an epicure. 

Fragrance is the atmosphere, music is the 
very air of Heaven. Flowers and fruits, beauty Beauty un- 
unspeakable, scenes beyond description gleam s P eakable * 
with ever-changeful glory from the farthest 
heights. Yet height and depth, east and west, 
north and south, what are they to us ? I only 
use the words ) )r ou can understand. Our com- 
pass points but in one direction, go where we 
will. To the center, the center of this glowing 
stretch of endlessness, we turn, forever turn. 

Home is in every place at once, for love 
makes the home, and love Supreme dwells ever 
in the very light we breathe. 

What do we do ? Fly through the worlds 
with speed that leaves their lazy flight behind, 
to carry tidings of great joy abroad. Stoop to 
the lowliest blossom of a new-fledged planet, to 
fill its cup with dew. 

Do I speak in parables ? The least act is 
the greatest and the greatest least to those who 
only live for good. Myriads of sparks from 
the Infinite leave their material forms, human 
or otherwise, and need those kindly attentions 
which weakness, ignorance, lack of develop- 
ment, persistent evil, the embryo stage, and a 
thousand other causes have made necessary. 
Do we stand idle when they come to join us ? 



86 AS IT IS TO BE. 

And our relations of affection ? He whom 
we hated we love. He who wronged us we 
enjoy. She who stole our dearest hope from 
us we seek with gladness ; such is the generos- 
ity of feeling we seek and obtain. 

And those we love and loved ? 'Tis subli- 
mated into poetry and eloquence ; 'tis taught it 
never knew how sweet was love. Song and 
silence, grace and triumph — satisfaction — satis- 
faction of every wish, every desire, long since 
so hopeless, comes stealing in and growing on 
the consciousness until not so much as the 
sleepiest little prayer offered as a child remains 
to be answered in full. 

The crown of goodness lies upon each 
The joy of forehead. The joy of goodness beams from 
goo ness. each countenance ; the rest of goodness calms 

every expression; the glorious strength and 
energy of goodness leads the w r ay to ever-re- 
ceding heights. 

Satiation cannot pall amidst an ever-varied 
round of new experience — solitude counteracts 
society at will. 

You know your favorite Bryant wrote at 
the end of Thanatopsis, ' and each shall chase 
his favorite phantom!' Ah! that was because 
the phantom is so often a vain and fleeting 
materiality. But here we chase our favorite 
phantom, indeed — a phantom of ideas you call 



HEAVENLY POWERS. 87 

it; a tangible reality we know it; unfading, in- 
destructible ; never disappointing our expecta- 
tions; never refusing to yield up its inmost 
secret. 

Would the naturalist chase to its ocean 
bed the denizen of waters miles in depth ? 
What shall hinder his researches ? Would the 
astronomer make himself acquainted with the 
inner strata of a sun ? What prevents him ? 
Would the historian see in actual presence the 
battles of an Alexander or the coup d'etat of a 
statesman ? Surely none shall say him nay. 
Would the disciple of Beethoven hear the mas- 
ter compose his favorite work ? Here is Bee- 
thoven, and on the eternal canvas of idea was 
long ago imprinted in indelible notes, tones, 
harmonies, touches, motions, vibrations, the 
long past melodies of composers, who to you 
are a half forgotten name. 

Heart joined to heart and soul to soul, our 
other half, ourself and not ourself, the unit, the 
twin being who rounds us into a perfect entity, 
the mate who is to us like lovely music wed to 
noble words, asserts, in ever happy compan- 
ionship, the possibility of divine union. 

' No marriage or giving in marriage?' you 
say to me in rebuke. True ; for how shall one 
dual being be married ? Once, perchance, we One dual 
were each in an individualized material form, being. 



88 AS IT IS TO BE. 

which might or might not have been united one 
to the other; but here, as one element in a 
chemical combination rushes with irresistible 
force to join itself with another element that 
attracts it, so, without doubt, hesitancy, fore- 
thought, desire even, the spirit of our mate, our 
other half, rushes to mingle itself forever with 
us, in all the incontrovertible persistence of 
natural law. 

Nor are we capable of holding back, for 
every instinct of our being teaches us this is the 
only perfect immortality. We seek with joyous 
delight the one dear counterpart in whom can 
be no mistake, from whom we derive comple- 
tion. Ah, exquisite contradiction and agree- 
ment within ourselves at once ! She or he, he 
or she, what matters it — or if the male and 
female mingled into one, forms a new creature 
ture. with a new name, as John on Patmos saw. 

What harmony of human conception were 
worthy to celebrate it? Love was never yet 
written in words or told in story. Only the 
shadow of his bright presence ever illumined 
the earth-bound air." 



A new crea- 




CHAPTER X. 

WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS WILL? 

VER since the Voices have begun 
to speak with me I have instinct- 
ively felt that I can bear no fail- 
ure in their statements. When 
a seeming paradox has been given 
me I have not been mentally at rest until to 
my mind it has been clearly explained, and so 
I have, since the above writing, dwelt particu- 
larly on a sentence uttered some pages back, 
which troubled me as I wrote it, and which 
troubles me now. I therefore desire to de- 
mand an explanation of what is meant in the 
following : 

1 Attention is the basal quality of will. No 
one can will positively and successfully without 
first profoundly setting the mind on the object 
of desire. It is for this that we must be obedi- 
ent to the law of attraction in our visits to you. 
Unless you have us in mind sufficiently to 
consciously or unconsciously will us to come, 
we have no current whereby to approach you.' 
" Now, I cannot comprehend the final sen- 
tence. First you say we must set our minds 

89 



ity of 



90 AS IT IS TO BE. 

positively to work to accomplish anything, and 
then you say unconsciously attract. To will 
you to come is to consciously desire you to 
come; and we cannot, so far as I can see, ' un- 
Attentkm consciously ' will anything. Attention being 

Sfif^n?^ 1 the basal q ualit Y of will, how can anything be 
willed unconsciously ?" 

" You are in your present condition made 
up of two bodies. You have a physical body 
with its brain and a spiritual body with its soul. 
Now, in the everyday life that surrounds you, 
you intelligently will this or that and accom- 
plish your will by setting your attention on the 
object and then proceeding to action. But at 
the same time the invisible life of your spirit is 
going on with its own functions and powers, 
and the spirit of you, being the dominant force 
of you, it often wills in a way of which you, as 
a physical being, are unaware. Do you think 
spirit begins only when your body dies ? Do 
you think that when your body dies your spirit 
is newly born? Do you think that all the 
while your body grows, and your intellect de- 
velops, that your spirit lies dormant, waiting 
for you to get through with your material form 
before it clothes you with a spiritual form?" 

" Why, yes and no. I think it is usual to 
imagine that we become a spirit when we cease 
to be a living being. Still I am not unaware 



WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS WILL? 91 

•of the theory that the physical form and intel- 
lect are pervaded by a spiritual form and soul, 
distinct in itself, so that when the body lies Distinct spirit- 
dead it flees away intact." ual form ' 

" It is not a theory ; it is a fact. And what 
do you think that this spirit which pervades 
you is doing all the time that you grow and 
progress?" 

" The idea that I am double is so new to me 
that I cannot say." 

" Let me illustrate to you : Did you ever 
have a presentiment that came true?" 

" Yes, and a good many that did not." 

" Did you ever have an intuition that proved 
correct ?" 

" Yes, and a good many that did not." 

" Did you ever suffer unrest, remorse, doubts, 
fears, which sometimes proved baseless but 
often proved the results of an outside cause of 
which you were at the time ignorant?" 

" Yes, of course, everyone has." 

" The inner workings of your mind are your 
spiritual growth, and, with your spirit ever busy, 
many unconscious desires, predilections, tend- 
encies, go on, and we may unconsciously be 
desired to come to you by that spirit, who also 
rules you in many things of which you are not 
practically cognizant: 

The senses of the spirit, even while attached 



92 AS IT IS TO BE. 

to an envelope of flesh, are infinitely finer than 
the senses of the body ; and many times when 
you seem to hear truth with your physical ears, 
and see truth with your physical eyes, and 
touch truth with your physical hands, your 
spirit tells you without words, in what you call 
intuitions, that it is falsehood that you hear, see 
or touch. Have you not many a time touched 
the hand of a stranger and felt an inward dis- 
trust, repulsion, even loathing of him or her?" 

"Yes." 

" Have you not listened to arguments so 
plausible that a philosopher could not combat 
them, uttered with inimitable persuasion and 
eloquence, and, during it all, has not your 
spirit told you it was all a fraud and warned you 
to keep aloof?" 

" Oh, many times." 

" Did you attribute these warnings to your 
own active and dominant spirit?" 

" No. I attributed them respectively to 
reason and intuition." 
What is in- " What is intuition ?" 

" I should say it was the instantaneous per- 
ception of a truth without any basis of reason 
to stand upon." 

" And I should say it was the opening of 
the faculties of the spirit while yet in the body, 
to the universal truth and knowledge which 
pervades the true spiritual atmosphere." 



tuition ? 



WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS WILL? 93 

" Still, as I answered you, my intuitions are 
not infallible." 

" Certainly not. No spirit is infallible, no 
matter how high he has reached. Only God 
is infallible. How, then, could one expect the 
earth-bound, flesh-enveloped germ of spirit to 
give infallible instructions, however much they 
may be relied upon, above many of the ordinary 
conclusions of the senses?" 

" Then, coming back to the original ques- 
tion, man does at times unconsciously will, by 
means of that invisible spirit of his that per- 
vades him?" 

" He certainly does. But as was suggested 
the other day when you discussed this point, 
here is a much simpler solution. You love A simple so- 
your mother dearly, and she is far away in Ber- lutlon * 
muda. If you had your way you would join 
her forty times a day or desire her to join you. 
Your souls are in perfect harmony, and nothing 
she does or you do would be uninteresting to 
the other. 

Now, practically, your reason and intelli- 
gence tell you that it is useless for you to con- 
sciously will your mother to come to you. 
Therefore you do not form in words the 
thought : ' I wish mother were here. Oh, if 
mother could be here to join me in this !' You 
put aside any conscious willing of her to come, 



94 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



as impracticable. But all the time your spirit 
does actually seek hers. Dominating your 
action, it leads you to avoid what she would 
dislike, and to do what she would approve. 
The longing in you to be with her is in its way 
an unconscious longing, because your whole 
mind seems taken up with affairs, but after all, 
The eternal the love in you, the eternal idea, which noth- 
ing can obliterate, calls and calls to her spirit; 
and were she a pure spirit, were her physical 
being dead — that physical form which holds her 
on the Island of Bermuda — she would be with 
you in the twinkling of an eye. And were 
you both dead as to your bodies, your union, 
even from the end of mortal-imagined space, 
would put the lightning flash to shame. 

Thus it is that you sometimes uncon- 
sciously attract us. The very fact of your mind 
dwelling on spiritual subjects and making pure 
truth the object of your warmest enthusiasm 
is an attraction of itself. The very fact that 
you seldom move either among men or amid 
the scenes of Nature without applying a spirit- 
ual and eternal significance to your observa- 
tions, is another < unconscious attraction,' of 
which you may not be aware. 
He who loves Again, every soul which aspires to God as 
mands invis- tne chief en d and aim of existence ; every soul 
ible powers. who loves God deeply, constantly and fervently, 



WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS WILL? 95 

calls to itself, holds and commands invisible 
powers and harmonies of which its earth-bound 
imagination cannot dream. Every fervent 
prayer for light, for truth, for righteousness, is 
an unconscious willing of forces which make 
for the causes you advocate. Were you con- 
scious of that?" 

" I am wholly and perfectly answered. I 
have no more to say." 





CHAPTER XL 

MORTAL MIND. 

AN you tell me what kind of power 
it is which produces raps, table- 
tippings, footsteps, closed doors 
opened, and indeed, such phe- 
nomena as are always caused 
by some invisible agent?" 
" It is an elemental power." 
" What kind of a power is that ?" 
" Material." 

" You mean that it is not a spiritual power ?" 
''Yes." 

" But these manifestations seem intelligent. 
The raps and taps answer questions and tell 
things unknown to those manipulating them, 
or rather, questioning them." 

" Nevertheless, the power is a material force, 
manifested by means of material." 

" Can a material force be intelligent ?" 
" No, but a mortal mind can control a ma- 
terial force so as to make it perform phenom- 
ena." 

" Do you mean to say that spirits do not 
communicate by means of these phenomena?" 



MORTAL MIND. 97 

" No; spirits sometimes do, but never in the 
way you were thinking — mischievously." 

" What is it, then, that thus communicates 
mischievously ?" 

" Mortal mind." 

"You mean that the phenomena are the 
results of will?" 

" Yes, will and imagination. The strongest will and 
will, magnetically considered, in a number of ima g matlon - 
people gathered to see such things, generally 
controls the current, and if there be any intel- 
ligent communication, he or she consciously or 
unconsciously produces it, more usually uncon- 
sciously, as few 'mediums' understand their 
own powers, and erroneously attribute to spirits 
qualities which they possess solely within them- 
selves." 

" How do you account for the message 
which I received from my dead father, which A stran ge 

11 j i j commumca- 

was written on a slate cleaned by me and closed tion. 
by another slate, with nothing between them, 
which I held at arm's length and which no one 
else touched?" 

" We know how that was done. He did it." 

"Who did it?" 

" Your father did it. But there was nothing 
evil in it, was there ?" 

" Quite the contrary. It was all good." 

" Well, good messages are often given by 



98 AS IT IS TO BE. 

real spirits in various ways. But bad and mis- 
chievous things are never written, spoken nor 
acted by spirits. It is impossible. All evil is 
material and mortal." 

" Spiritualists always, everywhere, claim that 
they know there are evil spirits as well as good. 

Take that Mrs. C , that bright, good woman. 

You cannot convince her that there are not 
evil spirits, for she has seen and talked with 
them." 

" No, she has not. Her imagination may 
have produced such a delusion, but she was 
under the influence of mortal mind, not of 
spiritual fact!" 

" How is one to discriminate between imag- 
ination, illusion and truth?" 

" Keep strictly to the rule : 

" If it be good it may be spirit — 
If it be bad it cannot be spirit." 

"What are apparitions ?" 
Emanations. " They are emanations of material from 

spirit." 

" Emanations?" 

" Yes, they are the spirit idea made mani- 
fest in material." 

" They emanate from spirit?" 

" Yes ; but mind you, they are not imbued 
with actual spirit. They are mere shadows, 
projections; they are not actual spirits." 



MORTAL MIND. 99 

" In this town an old woman was frequently- 
seen lying on her bed after she had long been 
dead and buried. Now, what was that?" 

" Her strong idea of herself as being there, 
manifested in material, shadowlike, but made 
up of actual particles — the emanation of her 
spirit." 

" So ghosts are real things ?" 

" Yes, and so real that they are chemically 
combined as much as you are, only they are 
not permanent appearances." 

" Why do ' ghosts ' haunt the earth?" Ghosts. 

" Because the immortal mind behind them 
haunts the earth, attracted, perhaps, by an 
eager desire to atone for some wrong, or it may 
be it is attracted to and longs for the old places 
or some place so strongly as to actually become 
materialized for a more or less time, more or 
less often. Usually a disturbed condition of 
the brain at death is the initial reason for such 
re-appearances. 

Sudden death, great anxiety, some most im- 
portant thing left undone, will frequently dis- 
tract the good of the spirit which comes here 
from an upward progress and hold it by its 
attraction earth-bound for some time, or until 
satisfaction is achieved." 

" But do not these ghosts often do mischief 
and cause evil?" 






100 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" No. They may cause fright. Anything 
' abnormal,' as you would call it, would do 
that." 

" Do they never beat or bruise, or set fire, 
or do any kind of evil, as flinging things about 
the house, or making unbearable noises, and in 
two words, do they not take delight in making 
'a row?'" 

" No. Every one of those things you have 
mentioned are caused by mortal mind. 

Some person within reasonable distance of 
Magnetism. the manifestation is full of magnetic qualities, 
which show themselves by currents projected 
and acting on material, as the mind of the per- 
son works. They often are harmless and as 
often harmful, since evil or good currents may 
be thrown out consciously or .unconsciously. 
There are invisible causes as well as visible 
operating in Nature. Mind expresses itself 
quite frequently by magnetic currents acting 
upon material " 

" Could I make a double rap on my door?" 

" No ; but a very strong medium could, and 
still not know it was he or she who did it. 
Usually such things are attributed to the action 
of spirits, but most often falsely." 

" Then, if I sat in a circle and heard distinct 
raps on my chair, knowing nobody could touch 
it, what would it be?" 



MORTAL MIND. 



101 



The effects 
of mind. 



" A magnetic current, impinging suddenly 
upon the wood. It would probably be thrown 
there from the mind of some one present. Mind 
dominates matter. Remember that. Some 
minds of a peculiar quality have developed the 
power of manifestation in material, and al- 
though they themselves may believe it is done 
by outside spirits, I reiterate that almost all of 
those experiments are done through and by 
mortal mind. Spirits may, but do not often, 
communicate by such means. Words, thoughts, 
impressions, not raps, taps, twanging and pound- 
ing of instruments are the true means of mes- 
sage from our world to yours. If in the rarest 
case such a method becomes necessary, you 
may rest assured the communication is very 
important and always for good." 

" That does put a new phase upon the affair. 
Who ever dreamed before that one can actually 
move a table by willing it to move ?" 

" Many have discovered their power. In 
olden days what was called the * Black Magi- 
cian ' knew how to manipulate material and he Ma g lcian 
could accomplish more or less surprising feats 
by means of his magnetism which he cultivated 
and conserved. It is not physical magnetism 
alone, but a magnetism of the mind, the spirit, 
which is necessary for the actual manipulation 
of material without contact. Unfortunately, as 



The Black 



102 AS IT IS TO BE. 

long as the spirit is still mortal mind, or envel- 
oped in a covering of flesh, the material ele- 
ment may predominate, and evil things be 
done. However, very few persons possess, or 
if they do possess, know how to use this natu- 
ral power, so not much evil is done by it." 

" I know that one mortal mind may domi- 
nate another mortal mind!" 

" Yes, and no end of evil is worked in that 
way. Spiritualists are too prone to attribute 
to spirits everything unusual. Thus they say 
that people may be obsessed by an evil spirit. 
Nothing could be more false. A person may 
be hypnotized by a bad mortal mind and thus 
be actually obsessed by that mind, but there 
never was a person yet obsessed by any spirit 
outside of an envelope of flesh. A man or 
woman may obsess or hypnotize another per- 
son and cause them to do any and every pos- 
sible evil. But no spirit can." 
Obsession. " But obsessed people claim that they see or 

hear a bad spirit?" 

" So do mesmerized people declare that they 
are freezing or burning if their mesmerizer tells 
them to ! The imagination is at the mercy of 
the hypnotizer, and one might see an angel or 
a devil if so willed." 

" Are many people affected by hypnotists?" 

" Almost everyone during a life-time has 



MORTAL MIND. 103 

some such experience, although both the hypno- 
tizer and his subject may be utterly unconscious 
of the processes and influences that are at work 
between them." 



CHAPTER XII. 




PUNISHMENT. 

AST evening I began to 
talk with the Voices, and 
we had the following con- 
versation : 

" I have just been ar- 
ranging my books, as per- 
haps you know. I 
find I have over sev- 
en hundred, and I 
believe they are ev- 
ery one of them dear 
to me. I make con- 
stant use of them. Heigho ! I sup- 
pose when I go to you that will be 
the end of it. You don't have books there, I 
suppose ?" 

" Not actual books, no." 
" Don't you read, then ?" 
" Oh ! yes, we read, but we are not obliged 
to have actual books before us, as you do." 

" Oh ! I know. You mean that the idea of 
the book existed before it was written or printed, 

104 



what we wish. 



PUNISHMENT. 105 

and so you read the idea. But there are a good 
many objections to that, I should say. An 
author's mind is in a state of chaos, as it were, 
in compiling his ideas for a book ; it is a process 
— he writes, scratches out, fills in, and is never 
done changing until he finishes the last proof. 
It would be rather tedious, I fancy, to follow 
the ramifications of his ideas. What we want 
is the finished work, and usually not half of 
that." 

" Well, you can have what you want and We have 
you cannot have what you do not want here, 
so I should think you would be satisfied. You 
have what you are attracted to, and you don't 
have the rest thrust upon you. As for reading 
your books, it is not necessary for you, when a 
spirit, to be with them. You can read them a 
million miles off as well as you can read them 
when before you. You can read them here, 
there, or anywhere." 

" Do you mean that what I have once read 
is forever retained and can be recalled to mem- 
ory at will when in the spiritual state?" 

" Absolutely so." 

" And what about books that I have never 
read at all, but which I should like to read ?" 

" They all exist for your pleasure and profit, 
and your mind will take them in whenever you 
choose, wherever you choose." 



106 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" The magnificent library of Alexandria was 
destroyed by fire," I said wistfully. 

" Are you sure ? But material fire cannot 
destroy spiritual facts. The Alexandrian libra- 
ry is still as accessible to us as ever." 

"And the Alexandrian authors also?" I 
cried. " Oh ! what a thought." 

" Yes," said the Voice, as if smiling. 

" But see here. How could I read the Alex- 
andrian library ? Why, I took up a Greek 
lexicon last night and became so interested in 
the English definitions and explanations, but 
they were so constantly interlarded with Latin 
and Greek that I gave it up in despair. How, 
then, could I read books in foreign languages ? 
Does changing from the material into the 
spiritual form give one a royal road to learn- 
ing?" 
A royal road. "It should be a royal road for the daughter 
of the king, certainly, and it is. We have an uni- 
versal language." 

"Is it Greek?" 

"No." 

" Then what good will it do when I wish to 
know Greek?" 

" Language in form, tone, symbol, is of 
human and material invention. It is the uni- 
versal language shattered into parts. The 
universal language contains all languages, and 



PUNISHMENT. 107 

is the root and crown of all idioms and diversi- 
fications. We, who know the root of all lan- 
guages, have no difficulty in comprehending 
the different branches. Does not the tree know 
its own fruitage ?" 

" This will be a joy to scholars." 

" Heaven is joy." 

" But out of Heaven, or before one gets 
there ? Is there an out of Heaven ?" 

"The preachers say so." 

" I know it. It troubles my soul, for I see 
no answer to it. You say sin and evil are 
wholly material and cannot enter the spiritual 
existence. What, then, of a man wholly given 
over to sin?" 

" No man is wholly given over to sin. God God in ev- 
is in him, more or less." er y man * 

" Well, supposing we say less — less to the 
utmost degree — what becomes of him ?" 

" Do you mean to take the extreme case ?" 

" Yes, the most extreme case possible." 

" He becomes a germ." 

"A germ !" 

" A spiritual germ, answering to material The germ, 
protoplasm. It is from this rare phenomenon — 
for it is a spiritual phenomenon, it is so rare — 
that men have caught the notion of annihila- 
tion. They knew instinctively that there was 
such a thing as apparent annihilation, and out 



108 AS IT IS TO BE. 

of this soul-consciousness has arisen the formu- 
lated idea. ■ But the germ is never annihilated. 
It may remain dormant indefinitely — we cannot 
say how long, it is in the decree of God — but 
He eventually vivifies it and it begins its career 
of progress. Being spiritual, its progress is 
proportionately rapid." 

" I cannot see any punishment to the wicked 
in this. If the germ lies unconscious, but 
Heaven and Eternity are still before it, I can- 
not see how its sins are of any practical disad- 
vantage to it, or cause it either remorse or suf- 
fering ?" 
Human be- " Who told vou that human beings were 

SrsX: created to sufe?" 

" Justice. Wrong must right itself. The 
wicked must be redeemed out of their wicked- 
ness ; the evil must be purged out of their 
natures." 

"But why by suffering?" 

" Because they have made others suffer. " 

" Oh ! an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. 
You are Jewish, then ?" 

" No, just." 

" And merciful ?" 

" Yes, merciful, for if there were no punish- 
ment for evil, evil would overrun the earth. 
Civilization would be in ruins." 

" Don't you punish your criminals?" 



ishments. 



PUNISHMENT. 109 

" Yes, when we can catch them." 

" You have caught them and punished them 
enough to save civilization from ruin, haven't 
you?" 

" Yes, I suppose we have." 

" And Nature severely punishes all sins Nature's puu- 
against her, does she not?" 

" Yes, sometimes to the third and fourth 
generation, innocent though they be." 

" Society condemns petty evils also, does it 
not ? There is a punishment for even the awk- 
wardness of the boor, is there not ? — in derision, 
or sneers, or laughs, or avoidance. 

Look over the world and count your pun- 
ishments. After that look into the world's con- 
science and count its secret punishments. Do 
you not think there is enough punishment right 
where you are, without our importing it into 
our peaceful country ?" 

" You are teaching me a dangerous doctrine. 
The fear of future punishment of some sort is 
one of the strong links that binds society to- 
gether. Let it be known that there is no re- 
morse, no suffering, no sorrow in the after-life, 
but merely the being born again into a new 
and safe and sweet condition — let it be known 
and believed, I say, and the statistics of suicide 
would be overwhelming, while crime would ride 
rampant over our heads. The law of love may The law 
do in Heaven, but not on earth." 



of love. 



110 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Then you think love and mercy cannot 
eliminate evil. You believe justice and suffering 
only can bring a man to a realizing sense of his 
misdeeds. Unless he suffers what he has made 
others suffer, either mentally or physically, he 
cannot appreciate the extent of the misery he 
has caused, or desire to cease to inflict it, or 
rise to better things ? For you, if a man causes 
a man to be burnt at the stake, he should also 
be burnt at the stake. If a man torments his 
wife with a thousand petty, mean, miserable mis- 
deeds and words, he should be subjected to 
exactly the same experience. 

If she retaliates she should be retaliated 

upon to the degree she strikes, and so on end- 

The univer- l ess ly« This is a pleasant picture. Will you 

please tell us whom you have appointed to be 

your Universal sheriff in the spiritual world?" 

" I don't know. I cannot say. I must 
only think that in justice we should reap the 
fruit of our misdeeds, good or evil." 

"Alas! child, how blindly you speak. How 
little you value the power of words. Reap the 
fruit of your deeds! What was the fruit of 
Napoleon's deeds? Were not the nations of 
the earth influenced ? Were not whole peoples 
changed ? Did not he make a million widows 
and orphans ? Did not he sweep the world 
with his sword ? Did he not scourge nations 



sal sheriff. 



PUNISHMENT. Ill 

as with a whip, yet, after all, were they not puri- 
fied as with a flame ? Are not the fruits of his 
deeds endless ? Have not you eaten them ? 
And will you heap this whirlwind of suffering 
all upon the devoted head of Napoleon ? Can 
you say whether or not he was a minister of 
the divine Will ? Yet heap the ' fruits of his 
deeds ' upon him ! * Tit for tat,' that is the 
course of your justice, untempered by mercy 
and love. See where it leads you ! There is 
no justice in it all. It resolves itself into fiend- 
ish cruelty." 

" What is the spiritual law, then ?" 
" We have told you. Cultivate spirituality, 
goodness, mercy, love. These, crowned by faith, 
hope and charity, make the elements of eternal 
life. More or less so you will be, as you pos- 
sess them, and if so little as to be merely a 
germ, thus missing glories unutterable, still, 
under the sun and dew of God's love, you will The sun and 
finally begin to develop, progress and rise." dew of God ' s 
" Do we remember our misdeeds ?" 
" Yes, you remember everything. In con- 
trast, you see what you might have been. 
Every attribute of your nature now longs for 
good and abhors evil. Your whole aspiration 
is to be in harmony with God, and the remem- 
brance that you were ever out of harmony 
with Him is an exquisite pain that only final 



112 AS IT IS TO BE. 

perfection will eliminate — a pain with an eternal 
hope in it, to be sure, but full of realization." 

" I cannot answer you at times. You strike 
me dumb with my own blindness, if I can use 
such a term. And the strange thing is, that 
when you answer me exactly contrarily to 
what I anticipated, I am convinced of your 
truth the moment you utter it. You are infi- 
nitely persuasive. I must believe you whether 
I will or no." 

" I have been thinking," I continued, " about 
g U lf» e ^ ea the great gulf fixed, ' so that they which would 
pass from hence to you, cannot, neither can 
they pass from thence to us, that would come 
thence,' which, in the gospel of St. Luke, is 
spoken of by Abraham. Between the Heaven 
and hell spoken of there, it appears there is no 
passing. Dives was in anguish, and Lazarus, in 
Abraham's bosom, in happiness. One could 
not go to the other. What does it mean ? 
What truth is there in it?" 

" There is no spiritual truth in it at all. It 
is a fable — a story written years and years 
before Christ. He is supposed to have told it, 
but He did not. If you will look at the chapter 
carefully, you will see that this story neither be- 
gins nor ends with any allusion to the Christ. 
He ends his speech by speaking of adultery, 
and instantly, without any connection what- 



as 



the hills. 



PUNISHMENT. 113 

ever, this Jewish fable is introduced, and the 
next chapter goes on without any application, 
or lesson, or moral drawn from the story, by 
Christ speaking of ' offenses.' The tale is ' old A tale as old 
as the hills,' and is of human conception en- 
tirely, like a thousand other myths. 

Remember the compilers of the New Testa- 
ment had very many old manuscripts to select 
from, and they put the life of the Saviour to- 
gether in a very bungling fashion. This had 
nothing to do with Him." 

" Christ was either inspired or not inspired, 
either true or false, divine or human. If He 
said there was a hell, He certainly believed it, 
and if He was inspired and divine, it was true." 

" Not necessarily. You must remember that 
Jesus was the son of a woman. He was human. 
He said He was the Son of Man. He may 
have been dual, but certainly He was both 
inspired and not inspired; both human and 
divine. Actuated by two natures, His teachings 
may have varied with them. Doubtless He be- 
lieved all He taught. But His intellect, training, 
education, custom, habit — all these influences 
may have told upon His opinions. He never 
claimed to be infallible ; it was His followers who 
came after Him that did that." 

" May have, may have — why do you say 
'may have ?' • Don't you know whether Christ 



114. AS IT IS TO BE. 

is divine, the Son of God, after living in the 
spiritual Heaven a thousand years?" 

" No." 

" I should think, then, that your information 
on any subject would not be reliable. If you, 
who have been in Heaven so long, cannot tell me 
anything about the Saviour, how shall I trust 
what you may affirm ? Why cannot you tell 
me of this most important thing?" 

"SFje almigl;fy xml is braitm before 
If is fare, IDe feel but rae bo nof sec flje 
d3obf;eab. H eamtof say if ratf^in H;e 
(d)ob[;eab esisfs a (Efjrisi H knoro % 
fjaue nerjer seen laim ouf of if." 

" Christ said : ' The pure in heart shall see 
God.' " 

" True, but He did not say how long it 
would be before they should see Him, nor des- 
ignate when." 

" I think that believers in Christianity look 
forward to seeing Jesus at once, and if they 
could not imagine Him as to be seen in a 
human form, recognizable as their human 
Saviour, they would be disappointed beyond 
words." 

" Let them ask themselves if they comply 
with the condition — a pure heart. On consid- 
ering that, they may be willing to modestly 
wait until called." 



PUNISHMENT. 115 

" But a thousand years !" 

" And does that seem so long to you ? Yet 
remember, to Him a thousand years are but 
as one day." 

" Is there such a thing as spiritual blindness 
in your world ? — such spiritual blindness as to 
exclude from the spirit the light and joy of 
Heaven?" 

" No." 

" What truth is there in Swedenborg's state- 
ment that some people, after death, are still so 
willfully evil that spiritual truths cannot be im- 
parted to them ?" 

" There is no truth in it. The statement is 
founded on his belief in a hell, and the eternal 
degradation of some spirits, which belief is 
utterly false." 

" But there must be spiritual ignorance ! Spiritual 
How is that dealt with ?" ignorance. 

" With tender mercy. As we have told you, 
the spiritually ignorant are simply undeveloped 
spirits who need and receive teaching and en- 
lightenment. Some are more rapid to learn 
than others, but none are utterly blind. The 
receptive faculty may be dormant and unsunned, 
as one might say, but how long do you sup- 
pose it can remain dormant in our atmos- 
phere ?" 

" But if the will of the spirit is opposed to 



116 AS IT IS TO BE. 

enlightenment? Take a thoroughly evil man, 
who has always been selfish, ignorant, obstinate, 
tyrannical, cruel and self-conceited. He thinks 
he knows it all. He don't think anybody can 
enlighten him. He scoffs at angelic wisdom, 
and would laugh anyone to scorn as an old 
fogy who would try to inform him that he is 
living on a low, unworthy plane, unfit for his 
future destiny. What can you do with a will- 
ful fellow like that ? I have seen such." 

" He leaves his selfishness, obstinacy, tyran- 
ny, cruelty and self-conceit behind him when 
he comes here. His ignorance is not an evil, 
Ignorance is so he brings that with him. Ignorance is not 
wicked. Then, with his ignorance, he also 
brings whatever good quality he did possess, 
one or more. Now, as soon as the selfishness, 
obstinacy, tyranny, cruelty and self-conceit are 
taken out of him, it leaves him with a residue 
of a few kind impulses, gentle acts, transient 
sympathies and generous thoughts, perhaps, 
which give us ground to work upon and him a 
tendency towards good. He is now in an 
atmosphere in harmony with good, which is a 
law acting with the same unerring force as the 
law of gravitation in the natural world. He 
gravitates towards good in spite of himself, just 
as a ball dropped from a tower gravitates to- 
wards the earth in spite of itself. 



not evil 



PUNISHMENT. 117 

" The immense attraction of the Sun of The Sun of 
Righteousness draws and holds all spirits to- n ^ 
wards good, even as the sun of your physical 
world holds and draws all planets towards 
itself. The result is, that having shed those 
evil qualities he had with the body, he keeps 
only the spiritual qualities he attained and 
developed, and by our ministrations and God's 
attractive force, he inevitably tends upward and 
onward. No soul is exempt from this /aw." 

" Wherein comes the theory of free-will, 
then?" 

" Man has free-will only to a limited extent. 
He has never been given free-will enough to 
absolutely destroy himself. As regards his own 
final destiny, he has no free-will, either on earth 
or hereafter. He has free-will to the extent of 
non-development of his own spiritual powers, 
and can carry it to such an extent that the 
angels look with pitying horror upon his obsti- 
nate depravity ; but do what he will, he cannot 
kill out within himself the indestructible germ The inde- 
of spirit, which is immortal and eternal, and 
which, after a certain series of vicissitudes, will 
inevitably develop and come to ultimate per- 
fection." 

" Are those vicissitudes full of pain, misery, 
agony ? Do they in any imaginable form 
resemble passing through a hell?" 

" No." 



structible 
germ. 



118 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Do they resemble in any way a punish- 
ment, remedial or otherwise ?" 

" They do in this sense : the spirit, now 
deprived of all tendency to evil, is yet conscious 
of his past, the opportunities he has missed, 
the joys he might have had and won, and the 
approval of God which might have been his. 

Wz actually fjang njilfj ecstatic be- 
Itgl;t upon If;e approval of (Bob. €f;ere 
is nothing in If earjen or on earfl; rafjicfj 
me rooulb not suflfer, bo, girje, offer, sacri- 
fice, to gain it. %\ is tfje rjeru ureatf; 
of our existence. 

If we feel the least disapproval of any act, 
thought, feeling or other emotion, which we 
cannot explain to you, because there are spirit- 
ual emotions of which no mortal ever dreamed, 
we are so exquisitely sensitive to it that it is 
as harsh and agonizing to our spiritual senses 
as a stone would be in your eye. 

We love God so utterly, and know His 
judgment and criticism to be so unapproach- 
ably pure, that to offend Him, or rather to 
grieve Him, is an unspeakable pain, a sorrow 
that is nothing like your earthly sorrow for 
intensity, yet parallels it when you have really 
wronged and hurt one whom you would give 
your life to please. 

Well, this new comer, such as you have 



sin. 



PUNISHMENT. 119 

described, having entered this realm of spiritual 
emotion, partakes of all our feelings, and being 
now terribly aware of his ill-spent years, his 
shortcomings, his neglect of truth and right, his 
spiritual deformity in the midst of ineffable beauty, 
so infinitely desires the forgiveness and approval 
of God that even Heaven cannot charm him 
until that harmony is established." 

" And does God forgive him ? And does 
he get into harmony?" 

" Eventually." 

" By what means does he gain it?" 

" By blotting out, one by one, his transgres- Blotting out 
sions, until his soul is purified and white and 
innocent as a child's." 

" How is that done ?" 

" He seeks every soul, every animate thing, 
beast or human, that he has ever wronged in 
thought, word or deed, and humbly tries to 
repair that wrong, gain forgiveness for that 
cruelty, receive in penitence and contriteness 
of heart whatever just penalty is imposed, and 
offers himself over and again as a repentant 
soul seeking to do all he can to undo all the 
wickedness of his earth-life. 

To accomplish this he must sometimes wait 
until he can meet his enemy, or the one he 
has wronged, face to face, and that cannot 
be until that wronged soul has come itself into 



120 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Years of Heaven. Years may pass before the explana- 
probation. t j on ^ ^ pi ea( ji n g can take place; but in time 

every sentient thing, including every insect 
even, which he willfully hurt from selfish or 
idle pleasure, or gratification of a mere animal 
instinct to kill or slay unnecessarily, yields its 
forgiveness, not in actual words, but in a way 
understood by his spirit. And at last he is free 
from stain, free from dark spots which spoil the 
immortal beauty of his spiritual form." 

" And then God forgives him, too, and takes 
him into harmony?" 

" W\)tn man forgtoBs fjts dm soul, 
($ob also forgtrjBS fytm, for (3oh anb Fjc 
in essence are one, ©fjen is I;armonu\ M 

" As no person is without these stains and 
blemishes of character in word, thought and 
deed, all must go through this very process, I 
suppose ?" 

" More or less, yes. But before death many 

go through the process while yet within their 

natural bodies. They think over their sins 

with such true and perfect penitence and would 

so fully repent and atone were their physical 

condition compatible, that they go through the 

purifying fire of remorse while yet on earth 

. and enter here in the possession of divine peace. 

Atonement on x * 

earth better. The repentance and atonement upon earth is 



PUNISHMENT. 121 

a quicker, better and nobler process than the 
long and minute discipline to which the soul is 
subjected here. 

God sees the heart. Nothing can hide the 
truth from Him. He is within the heart and 
knows its every beat. There can be no hypoc- 
risy, glossing over, palliating or excusing to that 
inner spirit which you all know is within you. 
And if, before death, by any means, you can be- 
come honestly at peace and forgiven to your- 
selves by yourselves, you may consider that you 
have accomplished your forgiveness, which is 
God's. Your own souls are your own judges. 
You cannot forgive yourselves until you are 
worthy." 

" And until we do forgive ourselves Heaven 
itself cannot give us joy ?" 

" Heaven will give you sympathy, tenderness, 
courage, instruction, and all manner of help. 
You will not be left alone to work out your sal- 
vation with fear and trembling, but you will be 
one of a great multitude, all busy at the same 
task, some just beginning, some far advanced, 
some emancipated and rejoicing with great joy. 

And another thing, the task is not hope- The task is 
less. You know you will accomplish it, and not hopeless, 
the eagerness with which you set about purify- 
ing yourself will be as wings to your feet." 

" What a glorious and just law ! I am ame- 



122 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



nable to it. I welcome it. I will forever abide 
ia its belief, and, so help me God, I will begin 
now to wipe out my stains." 

" Well done, my child." 

" So this is all the hell there is?" 

"This is all." 

"There is something yet, however, about 
which I am troubled. Here is a loving Chris- 
tian mother in harmony 
with God. Her son is 



wicked beyond expres- £f 
sion. Both die. One Mj 




becomes an angel, full of 
angelic powers; the other 
becomes an infant, a mere 
germ, lying dormant 
indefinitely. Does 
not the angel suffer 
in seeing her son lie 
deaf and dumb to 
Heaven's glories?" 
" No. She be- 
comes his sun and 
dew. She is the minis- 
ter to his salvation. 
Were he d e a d, she 
might mourn, but she 
knows he liveth, and that the evil that wrung 
her heart on earth is all done away with for- 



PUNISHMENT. 123 

ever. ' Rejoice !' she cries, ' ye saints, ye angel 
host, for my son who was dead is alive again ; 
the lost is found.' " 




CHAPTER XIII. 



SPIRITS DO NOT TEMPT THE CELESTIAL BODY. 




HERE is a dread- 
ful thing taught by 
spiritualists — so dread- 
ful, indeed, that I can 
hardly bear to think of 
it — to the effect that 
mortals are sometimes 
taken possession of by 
wicked spirits, who lead 
them into all sorts of evils; as, for instance, 
morphine eating. A person who died a mor- 
phine eater has the power to renew his vice 
through the medium of some unfortunate sen- 
sitive, and so fill him with a desire for morphine 
that he, too, shall involuntarily become a mor- 
phine eater to gorge the invisible appetite that 
preys upon him. I wish to know if there is 
any truth whatever in this horrible doctrine ?" 
" We are astonished by the pranks of the 
human imagination, and were it possible for 
celestial beings to be angry, we should indig- 

124 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 125 

nantly deny so base and unworthy an imputa- 
tion upon the Almighty justice and honor. 

Away with such liars, such hypocrites, who, 
to excuse a vile passion, try to thrust the re- 
sponsibility upon beings whose whole existence 
towards them is, and can but be only beneficent 
and exalting ! 

Shame on the cowards who dare not own 
to the unrestrained evil within them ! There 
are many who claim to be mediums and clair- 
voyants, who promulgate ideas which are abso- 
lutely false. Their ignorance has helped a 
belief which is full of corruption, misunder- 
standing and superstition. No, wholly no ! 
Man was not made to be the unconscious prey 
of beings more powerful than himself; the slave 
of invisible spirits whose sole business is to ruin 
him. Nor could his Maker subject him to such 
an insult to his moral nature. Whatever exists 
of passion in man is his own and no others, Man's pas- 
and to answer for it he, and he alone, will be sion s his own. 
compelled." 

" How about the demons, spirits and devils 
that Jesus cast out ?" 

" Men called hysteria, insanity, nervous pros- 
tration, illness of any peculiar form, a devil, for 
they knew little enough of anatomy or physiol- 
ogy. In fact, their vocabulary did not include 
words which would in any proper way desig- 



126 AS IT IS TO BE. 

nate a disease. The Christ was a natural healer, 
possessed of refined spiritual powers. His 
magnetism healed the sick. Their faith, which, 
you will remark, He always insisted upon and 
commended, helped the recovery. They were 
physically ill. He cast out neither spirit nor 
devil." 

" Then we may fear no intrusion of spirits or 
impressions unwelcome to us?" 

" Your independence and solitude are as 
secure as if you were the king of kings. Your 
own spiritual will, the highest and divinest part 
of you alone, can attract a spirit to your pres- 
ence, and if it be that you demand entire 
exemption from any approach or intercourse 
whatever, you have but to become conscious 
merely that such is your desire, and no wind 
that ever blew could drive us fast enough 
away to satisfy us, and fulfill the law of re- 
pulsion." 

" I would like to ask you more about the 
germ. Although the germ of spiritual life is 
all that enters your atmosphere from an almost 
wholly evil individuality, does it assume a 
celestial body, or does it remain undeveloped 
even as to its envelopment?" 

"There is in your imagination a certain 

,.,, - .. form which you wish me to say belongs to the 

race. angelic race, and you think, by questioning 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 127 

thus, that you will ascertain whether you are 
correct. But I cannot describe to you a celes- 
tial body. Youth, age, childhood, infancy, are 
terms which convey to your mind different 
phases of earthly images, the image of the 
Creator, and so you marvel if an ' infant ' in 
spiritual life looks like a little human, sucking, 
smiling baby. 

You think of your dear old grandfather 
with his silvery locks, and wonder if he will be 
the first to meet you, looking so familiarly, just 
as when he sat in his chair by the fire-place. 
You think of young people who have passed 
on, and wonder if they retain their youth. It 
is a great and puzzling question to you and to 

all who think about it. 'Shall we see our Shall we see 
c • j • i ^ T-.Tr our friends as 

friends again as we knew them here ? If not, of old ? 

we shall be so sorry, so disappointed.' 

Now, for your present comfort, I will say 
that when you come to us, gently borne upon 
the current of Heavenly will, you will find 
nothing to frighten you or render you other- 
wise than perfectly at ease. If it occurs to 
you to think of your friends at first and to wish 
for them, it will not be an instant before you 
see them, just as you expect to see them or de- 
sire to see them. But this will not and cannot 
last. The development in spiritual vision which 
will come to you, will change you, and in 



128 AS IT IS TO BE. 

changing, you will no longer desire to see your 
beloved ones as you knew them. Satisfied 
with them at first, you would become deeply 
dissatisfied, if while changing yourself into the 
new and celestial form, they remained as of old. 
For mingled in one supreme and beautiful 
whole, are infancy, childhood, youth, middle- 
age, and age, rounded and full in those who ex- 
perienced all of these, and exquisitely anticipa- 
tive in those who did not pass childhood and 
youth. 

Like the bud, the half-blown rose, the rose 
in its perfumed splendor, each beautiful and 
A perfect perfect in its stage, are those beings who, not 
any more assuming the indefiniteness of change, 
as in earthly life, are at all times perfect as to 
form, according to the glory within them. Ask 
not, then, to know whether the germ or the 
saint has a celestial body. Believe that no 
language could describe to you what no eye of 
mortal hath seen. Rest satisfied that no one 
shall be dissatisfied in this land of satisfaction, 
where every pure craving of a tender soul 
meets with its exquisite and divine fulfilment 
out of the unutterable bounty of God." 



flower. 




CHAPTER XIV, 

OPPOSING CREEDS. 

THE beauty of the 
foregoing communi- 
cation I happily dwelt 
for the day. I wore 
it upon my heart like 
a new jewel. But this 
morning, on thinking 
of the one hundred 
and one sects — " the 
two and seventy jar- 
ring sects/' as Omar Khayyam hath it — of 
this too jarring world, I thought I would ask 
the Voices what becomes of opposite opinions 
in the land of light ? 

" Opposite opinions are harmonized in one 
comprehension of truth. Where knowledge is 
can be no argument. Your creed-makers all 
agree that there is a sun. Here they know 
there is a sun of righteousness, and harmony 
with Him is the only admissible creed." 

" Yes, but error of opinion must exist some- 
where. You say a man takes his memory with 
him. Well, he dies a Calvinist, while his 

129 



30 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



\Yhat can 
harmonize 
creeds ? 



neighbor dies a Methodist and their friend died 
a Roman Catholic. Each was good, each a 
Christian, but each remembers what he was. 
How can they get over it? How can the 
Catholic help believing that absolution is nec- 
essary to salvation ? How can the Calvinist 
help believing in election ? How can the 
Methodist help believing in the necessity for 
conversion ? They think these are essential 
points in the scheme of salvation and that he 
who does not accept them is lost. What can 
harmonize the three opposing creeds?" 

" In the first place, they all come here." 
said the Voice. " That answers it as far as hell, 
purgatory and _ ^ 

everlasting 
punishment 
are concerned. 
Then they see 
among them 
people who 
professed no 
creed at all. En- 
lightenment, like 
abeam, creeps in- 
to the dark crev- 
ices of their minds, 
hitherto filled with 

the prejudices of inheritance, education, custom. 
Charity, broadening the intellect and inflaming 




*i- 



of right. 



OPPOSING CREEDS. 131 

the heart with universal sympathy, softly sweeps 
away from their souls the clouds of intellectual 
error. Love, all-surrounding, all-commanding, 
shows them the vanity of formula, the selfishness 
of dogma, the pride of theologic wile, the obsti- 
nacy of human prejudice, the sanctity of Right The sanctity 
for its own sake, the overwhelming No, uttered 
against non-conformity to an Universal creed, 
including all intelligent beings, and proportion- 
ing to each his share of glory as the pure good- 
ness of his heart deserves. 

It is not, it cannot be a matter of organi- 
zation, election, foreordination, atonement, bap- 
tism, conversion, which ' elects,' and ' chooses,' 
and ' calls ' men and women to a higher sphere. 
It is loving and worshiping the Father, loving 
and being kind to all fellow creatures, dumb 
animals, and the wicked and the unfortunate 
alike; it is the right exercise of every power; 
the loyalty to honest purposes and high aims ; 
the self-sacrifice for others, the ordering of life 
with a view to a nobler and better state of ex- 
istence hereafter, which leads the soul on and 
up into a state of beatitude and bliss. Good- 
ness! That is all the conversion needed to 
bring you here, and to profit by every advan- 
tage of Heaven. 

Be a heathen and love your highest ideal, 
the ideal which means God to you, even if it be 



active 



132 AS IT IS TO BE. 

a rock or a stick, and we will welcome you 
with the same joy, and God will grant you the 
same love as if you sought Him before the altar 
of the most orthodox church." 

" But the Congregationalists teach that we 
are all naturally depraved, and that unless we 
can believe in Jesus Christ as the atonement 
for our sins, that we cannot enter the Kingdom 
of Heaven. ' There is no other name under 
Heaven,' you remember He said Himself, 
' whereby you can approach the Father save 
through Me,' or words to that effect. How 
can you answer that ?" 

" By simply saying that whoever uttered 
those words in the flesh is now inevitably some- 
where in the spirit, and if the Christ exists in 
The Christ the Godhead, do you doubt that He is as act- 
ive now as He was two thousand years ago ? 
Can He be blind and deaf to the cries of 
humanity? He holdeth the sickle in His 
hand, and reapeth the ripe grain of His ancient 
sowing. His ministering angel still bears His 
messages of peace to earth. 

Is not His name as potent, His will as 
strong, His compassion as tender, His con- 
sideration as deep, His comprehension as 
broad, and His love as perfect as when He 
condescended to tread your planet centuries 
ago ? What do you suppose the dear Christ is 



OPPOSING CREEDS. 133 

doing all this time ? Do you think His invisible 
influence is not as persuasive as was His visible ? 
Is the time gone by when He hath power to 
raise from the dead, to heal the sick, to rescue 
the perishing, to atone for the wicked ? How 
know you, feeble and weak-sighted mortal that 
you are, what are the plans and intentions of One 
for every living soul to-day, or how His Name, 
taking various forms in various consciousnesses, 
is not as much the Word in 1892 as in 33? If 
you see a stranger walk up the lane and accost 
him, and he answers you in a foreign tongue, 
you feel he is an alien, a being not of your 
kind, like a bear or an elephant — he is differ- 
ent — you do not know him. Yet, if you look 
into his Arabian mind, for instance, you will 
find him at sacred moments worshiping God, 
and the dew of God's blessing resting on his 
forehead. 

Say the Name to him • he may have heard 
it, but it is of no moment to him. Yet the 
Name is at that moment written on his heart 
in some deed of righteousness that would put 
your petty sacrifices to shame. 

Be not narrow. He who came to save the 
world will save it, rest assured; and if the 
savage who burns his ox-meat on some rudely 
constructed pile before an idol, offers up the love 
and homage of his poor, ignorant nature as well 



134 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



as he knows how, do not think that he is for- 
gotten, neglected or despised, save of those 
churches who grant him and his ancestors a 
burning hell for the sole portion of their mis- 
fortunes, and no probation 
even for the innocent babe 
he carries on his rude but 
human bosom. 

We cry out, we who 
watch the madness of the 
world, in longing to save it 
from itself. And cannot you 
trust Him who gave Him- 
self to order things 
aright? Speak aloud, 
aye, shout the word 
'Goodness' in the ears 
of men. There is a creed 
worth having, and the only one inclusive enough 
to hold The Spirit. Outside of genuine good- 
ness all creeds are chaff. It is by unity in 
goodness that men dwell here. The Incarnate 
Goodness is the universal name that needeth 
no translation, for it is known among all nations 
and is the same in all tongues." 

" In using the word ' incarnate ' goodness, 
I suppose you mean the goodness done in the 
flesh by man to man as we know it, do you 
not ? You are so careful in the use of words 
that I wish to make sure." 




OPPOSING CREKDS. 135 

"Yes. I meant that goodness that is rec- 
ognizable everywhere, and which is the reflec- 
tion of the Source of goodness, even as a lake 
reflects the stars. Of the higher goodness I 
did not speak." 

" Is there, then, a higher goodness ? — a The higher 
goodness greater than itself?" ' goodness. 

"Aye; but it is above the comprehension 
of any creature of the soil." * 

" Ah, what a vista you open before me ! 
What a hint of something unimagined yet dimly 
recognized as possible!" 

" Say no more. It is beyond." 




CHAPTER XV. 



THE DUAL UNIT. 






Separate ex- 
periences. 



AY I request you to explain a little 
about the dual unit to which you 
have alluded several times in the 
past. What kind of an union can it 
be which makes one person out of two?" 

" You mistake us if you think one person is 
made out of two to produce the dual unit. 
The individuality of each person is intact, but 
at the same time is imparted to its mate, so 
that there is complete union of being as to 
memory, experience, thought, tendency, taste, 
inspiration, intention, and goal." 

" Can you not illustrate this so that I can 
understand it more clearly ?" 

" The dual unit, the one made of two, mas- 
culine and feminine, when joined here, are as 
one being. Mark you, we do not say, are one 
being, as if a man and a woman were molded, 
like a lump of clay, into a new form, but are as 
one being as to all spiritual essence. Each ab- 
sorbs and holds the other — mingles, mixes with, 
resembles the other. All mutual or separate 
experiences are blended into harmony. If one 



THE DUAL UNIT. 137 

was artistic, but lacked business qualities, the 
other would have business qualities and very 
likely not be artistic, but in the one being busi- 
ness and art would come together, and thus 
supplement each and make it perfect. Thus 
you see how beautifully God plans for His 
children. What one lacks the other will pos- 
sess, provided that lack is necessary to be made 
up to form a harmonious union. God's secrets 
are always more lovely than the gifts He re- 
veals." 

" It is so seldom that people with genius 
here, find a mate who appreciates them. Is 
not one of the chief sorrows of this world the 
result of mismating ?" 

" Never call a marriage a mismating. How- 
ever it may affect either party, there was need 
of the experience by each. The idea that 
people have a right to consider themselves free 
because a marriage is not congenial, has led 
to more wrongs, errors, crimes, sensuality and 
earthiness, than many another seemingly greater 
evil." 

" But supposing one of the partners is crim- 
inal, cruel, brutal?" 

" That is another question, and comes under 

another head. It is not defined in the marriage Cruelty not 

law, neither of earth nor of Heaven. It should m th f mar- 
riage bond. 
be relegated to the criminal code, where it be- 



138 AS IT IS TO BE. 

longs, and its punishment should be the cutting 
the offender off from society like a theft, a rape > 
an arson. What we allude to is the easy loos- 
ing of a bond which has simply become tire- 
some, distasteful, or filled with unpleasant 
duties. When it becomes unendurable, drag- 
ging both body and soul into low and disorgan- 
izing states, the experience has served its pur- 
pose and must legally be brought to a close." 

" What is the advantage gained by a man 
of genius from being united to a commonplace^ 
dull, unappreciative woman?" 

" Perhaps just the fretting of his soul. His 
struggle to lift her, or his pity or scorn of her 
incompetency, or his disappointment, casting 
Opposition him more and more upon his own resources, 
may draw out of his life, harp-strains of immortal 
beauty which might never have sounded in the 
sweet but enervating society of one like him- 
self." 

" And what is the advantage to the woman ?"" 

" Association with genius ; the society it 
draws around it; the hearing, even dully, noble 
and beautiful thoughts, or the seeing of grand 
pictures, or the absorbing of rich music, inevi- 
tably have their effect, even if not a visible one. 
Through the dull or almost dumb medium of 
the body, a growing soul may not make itself 
strongly manifest, her mind even may seem to 



THE DUAL UNIT. 139 

shut itself in unresponsive silence, but always 

take into account that spirit of hers, which 

pure, takes in only the good. Then you will 

see the mutual advantage of a seemingly un- Unfortunate 

fortunate marriage." marriages. 

" How then, < all things work together for 
good for those who love God ?' " 

" They certainly do, but should you not 
turn it the other way, and make it for those 
whom God loves ? It is a poor rule that does 
not work both ways." 

" Ah ! but would that quite do ? It would 
mean everybody then, would it not ? For none 
would dare say that God does not love all His 
children." ■ 

" Well, if you take all who love God and all 
whom God loves, you make a perfect rule, per- 
fectly applicable to all. And as the sun shines 
on the just and the unjust alike, we cannot see 
whom you can exclude. Know that there is 
a meaning to that saying which renders it par- 
ticular, at the same time it is universal. Those 
who consciously and earnestly love God, place 
their spirits in instant harmony with His. His 
will then becomes their will, and they offer 
in themselves no opposition to the divine plan, 
which is included in the human plan, even as 
the human is included in the divine. And in 
offering no opposition, but gladly and lovingly 



140 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



yielding to God's sweet way, the whole universe, 
material and spiritual, bends to serve and obey 
the mortal, as if it were the Immortal will, 
since in harmony they are one." 





CHAPTER XVL 

A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE ELEMENTARIES. 

VERY curious ex- 
perience happened 
last evening. I 
was just beginning 
to hear the Voices 
speak when I be- 
came aware of a 
struggle in mid-air. 
It seemed to me as 
if a spirit, about five hundred feet in the air, 
were struggling with some power or powers, 
and crying out, " Let me go ! Let me alone ! 
I will not go back ! Why do you hold me ? 
Let me go, I say !" over and over. 

I felt critical in my mind while I was im- 
pressed by what seemed to me to be a quarrel, 
and, as I am ever on the alert to detect the 
Voices in one misstatement, I said to myself: 
" Ha ! there is no evil in spirit, they say, yet 
behold ! there is a struggle and a quarrel and A struggle. 
loud cries in the very air." 

In a very brief time the spirit I saw — for it 
seemed to me I saw this, although I know I did 

141 



142 AS IT IS TO BE. 

not see it with my own bodily eyes, but with 
my perceptions — was drawn down to earth and 
was silenced by what I believed to be other 
spirits, although I saw nothing but the spirit 
who seemed to fight air. I then said in a 
somewhat sarcastic tone : " That was a very 
pretty sight for the Heavenly sphere!" 

" It is strange," said the Voice, " and it is 
very painful, if what we feel can be called such, 
because it draws us sympathetically so close to 
the material." 

" What was it ? I thought there was noth- 
ing so material as a quarrel with you." 

"That was not a quarrel!" the Voice ex- 
A rare oc- claimed; "it was a rare occurrence which we 
currence. very seldom observe. The spirit you saw was 

that of a man who was dying. His friends 
believed him, for the moment, dead. His 
spirit was so far separated from the body as to 
be conscious of itself and its new freedom. 
But nature, vitality, the life of the material, was 
so strong in him that he could not fully dis- 
sever himself from the body — the law of attrac- 
tion still held him too closely to the material to 
permit him to escape. 

He realized the pulling back, the strong 
power behind him pulling on every limb, and 
only half awakened to his true state, he be- 
lieved he was attacked and jostled and pulled 




ESCAPED. 



ELEMENT ARIES. 143 

back by other spirits. So he cried out as you An unex- 

heard, deceived, as you were deceived: but P^ctcd e X - 
7 7 j > planation. 

finally obliged to yield, he had to re-enter his 

body. His friends doubtless thought he fainted, 

or fell into a state of coma, since he came to 

life. He will probably live." 

I was thunderstruck at this startling, this 
wholly unexpected explanation of the singular 
scene. And now I think it over, this is the sec- 
ond time I have seen anything. The vision of 
the silver lily was the first and this is the sec- 
ond spirit view I have had— both full of sig- 
nificance. * * * * * 

The next day I began to think of what I 
have read regarding the belief of ancient nations 
in what is called Elementais. They are men- 
tioned in many books as spirits and as lying, 
mischievous spirits who can exercise an evil 
and deceptive power over man. 

" Permit me to ask you, my good Voices, 
what an Elemental is, or rather, is there such a 
thing?" 

"There is." 

" What is it?" 

" An undeveloped spirit." 

" May I ask if it is a germ ?" 

" It is not." 

" If undeveloped it is in embryo, perhaps." 

" No. It is spirit in so far as it is immortal, 



144 AS IT IS TO BE. 

but it was never human and can never attain to 
human spirithood. It is not earthly but earth- 
like — an emanation of primeval matter. It 
possesses intelligence without soul. It is con- 
scious without knowledge. It is the brute force 
— the physical vitality — transformed into a sort 
of spiritual vitality." 

" What is its use in the economy of nature ?" 

"The preservation of the kind. It is the 
unreasoning and unmoral intelligence which 
animates animals, birds, insects, fish, vermin, 
and all life below the human — the idea-fact of 
the lower order of intelligence which cannot 
rise to human consciousness or thought. Were 
Animal ex- it not for the existence of elementals, animals 
would become extinct or dwindle in vitality, 
instinct and intelligence to mere idiots of ani- 
mals, one might say. The spirit of a living 
being of any order is superior to the being 
itself. Although an elemental is only the life- 
principle of a brute creation, yet it partakes 
enough of its eternal inheritance of glory to 
know, to think, to utter itself." 

" You certainly seem to contradict yourself. 
You first say it is conscious without knowledge, 
and then you say it can know and think." 

" So does your dog know its master, think 
of food and seek it, and utter its meaning by 
motions. But, certainly, you would never say 



istence 



ELEMENTARIES. 145 

your dog has knowledge. He is conscious, but 
not moral. He is capable of reasoning and 
yet is not a reasonable, and therefore, respon- 
sible being. So it is with the elemental, which 
represents the animal spirit." 

"Animals do, then, have a hereafter?" 

" Nothing is ever lost." 

" I have often hoped that the sufferings of 
horses in the service of man, the faithfulness of 
dogs, the affection of many other animals, 
should be rewarded. Can I feel that our pets 
who have been so really dear to us do not ab- 
solutely perish at death ?" Do brutes 

" They do not. You can renew your friend- JJ eri! J > at 
ship for animals, if you please." 

" And are they conscious of a newer and 
better condition? For instance, a splendid, 
willing, trusty, intelligent horse, which has been 
beaten, abused, starved to death here — does he 
awaken to a consciousness of warmth, ease, 
plenty, all that his brute instincts desire?" 

" No. He is merged in the general whole." 

" Then how can I observe him when I am 
a spirit, or know him as ' Old Bill ' (a fine old 
fellow long gone to his rest) ?" 

" Because you will him out of the general 
into the individual, by your desire, attraction 
and attention.*' 

" A phantom of my own consciousness?" 



146 AS IT IS TO BE. 

11 No, a reality, since you desire it." 

" I cannot understand this."' 

" Well, imagine all the beasts that ever ex- 
isted. Would you desire that they should re- 
exist in an individual form ?" 

" No. That would be a howling wilderness, 
I should say." 

" Very well. Be satisfied, then, with the law 
that any sentient being below the human, when 
leaving the material form, merges into the mass 
of elemental force, adding its vitality to the 
spiritual atmosphere from which new material 
forms are emanated. But if, commanded by the 
superior human spirit, any particular animal is 
willed and attracted out of the general mass 
into an individual spiritual entity, it will obey 
and become as real a dog or cat to the human 
spirit as it was a material dog or cat to the 
mortal. Were it not so, the supremacy of the 
soul above the intelligence would not be main- 
tained." 

"The Rev. J. G. Wood, author of 'Man 
and Beast,' would, I am sure, be pleased with 
this information. His great heart suffers in the 
Animal an- thought of animal annihilation." 

" Human beings are apt to endow animals 
with more human attributes of thought, feeling, 
sensitiveness, delicacy even, than they possess. 
But such feelings toward animals are ennobling 



nihilation. 



ELEMENTARIES. 147 

In the extreme. They refine and uplift. Thus 
there is a reactive influence." 

" But all this leaves me where I began in my 
thought. Where is the compensation for an- 
guish endured by animals and dumb life every- 
where ? What joy shall come into their con- 
sciousness to repay them for the pain of their 
existence in this life ? In what way is justice 
and mercy to be dealt to them, who, sinless, still 
suffer and suffer, only at last to be killed for the 
food of man or some other creature for whose 
prey they were born ? Who is to recompense What rec- 
this enormous mass of pain that forever goes o m P ense? 
on, without stop or limit, in beings who cannot 
sin, but who live solely to fulfill the requirements 
of the nature bestowed upon them ? If they 
do not consciously live again, how useless 
appears their existence — a vicarious existence, 
a forced sacrifice of life for the sustaining of 
other orders in which they have no part and 
from whom they receive no consideration." 

"We cannot give you any answer. The 
fact remains that the animal does not attain a 
separate and conscious individuality. As far 
as we have ever known, no animal has been 
conscious of any reward or compensation for 
his earthly sufferings. Possessed of no lasting 
memory, he knows not to-day what he suffered 
yesterday, and does not anticipate any suffering 



148 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



to-morrow. He lives his life and returns to- 
the elements. What that general state may be 
I know not. It may be a state of joyous vital- 
ity like ours, only adapted to the animal nature 
it represents. But I cannot console you with 
any definite statement. Faith in God's good- 
ness must here be your logical stay. For if 
you are so solicitous as to the happiness of the 
animal creation, remember you could not be if 
it were not the spark of God in you that makes 
you so ; and He, in His infinite solicitude for 
all creation, must have, in some wise way, pro- 
vided for exact justice and true loving kindness 
in this as in other matters, although you nor I 
can understand it." 




CHAPTER XVII. 



RE-INCARNATION CHILDISH AGE. 




DESIRE now to continue 
the conversation by asking 
if there is such a thing as 
the re-incarnation of the 
human spirit. That is, if 
an adult die, can his spirit, 
under any condition what- 

ever, enter the infant form of another human 
being and live a second human life in this 
world ?" 

" No. He cannot." 

"Then the keynote of Buddhism and of 
Brahmanism is a false note ?" 

" No, not wholly. I, at first, was at a loss 
to answer your direct question, for it implied 
so much, but I think I can make you under- 
stand. Your soul naturally abhors the idea of 
re-incarnation, and I feared if I admitted the 
possibility of such a thing you would shrink 
out of harmony with me. But there is a cer- 
tain re-incarnation of which the idea of a per- 
sonal and physical re-incarnation is symbolic 
or emblematic. 



There is a 
kind of re-in- 
carnation. 



histic scheme. 



150 AS IT IS TO BE. 

It is the hint of the truth which has led to 
a doctrine which is practically false but spirit- 
ually true. The re-incarnation of mind can 
take place in a certain way, one of which you 
are at this moment illustrating. I cannot live 
again upon the earth in a human physical form, 
but my thought embodies itself and will live, 
nevertheless, by means of you and your pen." 
The Budd- "The Buddhistic scheme appears to have 
been formulated to explain the existence of evil, 
and especially hereditary evil, and to emphasize 
the substrata idea of evolution, progress." 

" Yes. But the imagination of the East runs 
into the material far more easily than the West, 
much as they boast of their spirituality. Their 
* Nirvana ' is not our Heaven, nor can they 
conceive of such. The Occidentals are the 
active, the Orientals are the passive. Yet here 
opposites meet." 

" You mean that spirit is spirit and goes to 
spirit, no matter what it believes?" 
" The division is peculiar." 
" What do you mean by that?" 
" I mean that according to the cultivation 
of the intellect in a right direction, so the ad- 
vance is more rapid." 

" But if the morality be equal ?" 

"A good man may be a fool." 

"True, but we none of us suppose that a 



RE-INCARNATION. 151 

good man shall not have the highest reward, 
let his intellect be what it may." 

" Does he in your world?" 

" No. But everyone feels that by rights he 
should." 

" We spoke in this way because we wished 
to see if we could mislead you." 

" Well, did you see ?" 

" We see we cannot, for you seem to have a 
keen perception of righteousness. Let me say 
now, once for all, that man is born once only, ^ bo 
lives one human life, becomes wholly spirit, once only. 
slurs off all evil, is graded in knowledge and 
glory according to his character of goodness, 
and rises to perfection rapidly or slowly, as in- 
tellect and goodness are combined in him har- 
moniously. But you seem to think that all 
people must instantly enter upon equal knowl- 
edge when they reach Heaven, or else they 
will repine and be or feel misused. 

Ask your maid to-day if she has an ambi- 
tion to understand Euclid or to be able to an- 
alyze a Greek root, or do a problem in geometry, 
or read the stars as a seer. Such a proposition 
would astound or frighten her, and if she thought 
she should ever be forced to do it she would 
cross herself and cry to all the saints. Yet 
think not that she will enter here only to find 
dissatisfaction. Knowledge is a growth, and 



152 AS IT IS TO BE. 

the desire for knowledge is an outgrowth of 
that growth. Ambition for perfection is the 
flower of the growth of that growth, and not 
everyone attains it in a thousand years. 

Yet all are content in simply growing as God 
wills, and the joy of every step and every con- 
Heaven a dition, each after its own kind, is a cresce?ulo of 
pleasures. multiplied sensations and pleasures. Your sense 

of justice, absolute justice, is so strong that you 
cannot bear to think that one human being 
enters Heaven with any better chance than an- 
other. 

But since Heaven is joy, and is taken in 
by each to his or her fullest capacity, satisfy 
your mind. Hold up a cup as boundless as 
space if you will, and ask the Infinite to pour 
out His whole spirit to fill it, so that you and 
He are one ; but do not think such a feeling 
could be comprehended by the mass of people, 
who would shudder at the boldness of the 
thought and faint at the mere hint of so stu- 
pendous a crisis. Each to his own in full satis- 
faction. So is our life here. Ask no more. ,, 

" I may feel quite safe, then, that I am not 
ever to be obliged to re-incarnate myself in 
another human form and perhaps lead the life 
of an Italian woman, or a Hindoo girl, or even 
a Frenchman ?" 

"You nor any human being need fear it, 



RE-INCARNATION. 153 

nor anticipate it. The flesh is but the dress of 
an entity. That entity attains individuality by 
its envelope, in which it lives its human, earthy 
span. Once cast aside, the spirit's needs are 
over, as far as your world is concerned. It has 
been born on the human plane and starts from 
there. Why should it be born over and over ? 
What advantage would it gain?" 

" Why, they teach that in every new incar- 
nation the spirit throws off a little more evil, 
until finally it becomes saintly and ready to 
enter — peace." 

" The necessity does not obtain." No necessi- 

" You say that the entity becomes individ- £ n re ' mcar " 
ualized by entering its envelope of flesh. Did 
you not state sometime back, that had I never 
been born I should still have been a fact, an 
entity, no matter into what shape I was trans- 
muted ?" 

" Certainly, but you might not have been 
an earthly, human entity, or have started on the 
earthly plane. My statement is that you, as 
an idea-fact uttered by God, are individualized 
and made distinct and separate by means of 
the fleshly envelope in which you dwell and 
experience the vicissitudes of existence. If 
you had not entered the earthly form you 
might have become one of a different order of 
beings. Your entity would have remained 



154? AS IT IS TO BE. 

intact — your dress would have been of a dif- 
ferent cut and fashion." 

" Having, then, become individualized, does 
the soul ever lapse into the general mass again, 
so as to need to again become individualized, 
either here or hereafter?" 

" No. As God has made you a woman 
spirit, so you will remain a woman spirit to all 
intents and purposes. What is beyond perfec- 
tion I know not — there may be much — but up 
to the perfection of the human spirit it pre- 
serves its selfhood and identity intact. No 
spirit can tell you more than this." 

" What truth is there in the Theosophical 
Karma. doctrine of Karma ?" 

" None at all. It rests on their doctrine of 
Re-incarnation, which is utterly wrong." 

" But let me state the doctrine of Karma as 
I view it. Maybe there is truth in it ! They 
say, in brief, that all our acts in this life build 
up for us good or bad conditions in our next 
life on earth. That a true, noble, unselfish life 
in this world gains a reward of pleasure, agree- 
able circumstances and joyous relations the 
next time we come back here, therefore our 
characters will always improve, until we are at 
last so pure that we have built up a Karma 
which shall keep us out of any further re-incar- 
nations While, on the contrary, persistent evil 



RE-INCARNATION. 155 

will at least lead us to complete annihilation, 
or hell." 

" There can be no argument about Karma 
when there is no such thing as re-incarnation. 
We have told you that the sum and result total 
of the goodness which you have built up within 
yourself, in one sole existence in the body, is 
all that goes with you, or rather is you, in the 
world of spirit which you enter. That good, 
little or great, is all there is left of your earth 
experience, and it at once proceeds onward, 
multiplying itself forever. 

The good conditions, the joys which sur- Joy the out- 
round it, are the outcome of its own righteous- come ri § ht " 
' ° eousness. 

ness, and abound more or less, according to 
the capacity to enjoy, comprehend and make 
use attained by the living spirit. There is no 
looking backward nor going over again an ex- 
istence in a material body, once the spirit is 
wholly escaped from it, and that process never 
takes any noticeable length of time." 

" Then all this teaching of morality because 
it will be well for us in our next life here, is so 
much useless and pernicious chatter?" 

" It is pernicious because it is not true, and 
equally so because it holds forth rewards for 
goodness in a material sense and suggests inev- 
itably material riches, comfort and pleasures, 
to the exclusion of higher motives." 



156 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" If I were capable of appealing directly to 
Theosophists all over the world, what argu- 
ment could I bring to bear to convince them 
that they are laboring under a delusion ?" 

Truth will " Truth. It will infallibly make its way. 

ever make its ml , ,. .. . . , ,_ 

way 1 he belief in re-incarnation and Karma, intro- 

duced into the Western world and eagerly 
accepted here, is powerful in two ways : It is 
new to most Europeans and Americans, and 
those to whom it comes are anxious and asking 
for something which shall satisfy their reason 
or seem to make a way of escape from the old 
forlorn doctrines of eternal punishment. 

Many conscientious persons believe that 
real justice demands the punishment of evil 
persons, even to the spirit's death, but they 
shrink from it nevertheless, and if they could 
see one loop-hole through which the light of 
Hope should stream, they would set their eyes 
and hearts upon it with joy and thanksgiving. 
This, re-incarnation offers, and Karma is the 
means by which they think it is possible for 
even the most evil to repent. It is a sort 
of probation that the gospels they have been 
accustomed to do not offer. They say to 
themselves : ' Here is a chance that Calvinism 
The ortho- does not give me. In the orthodox religion I 
dox religion, have but one life and my judgment comes on 
that. My poor little seventy years settles my 



RE-INCARNATION. 157 

fate. But if I can be re-incarnated many times, 
each time gaining a little, my judgment will be 
put off indefinitely, and it will depend upon 
me, through a long series of experiences, to de- 
termine my own final destiny. 

* That, certainly, that is the most reasonable 
and logical. I cannot blame my Maker, then, 
for He gives me plenty of time; while, as the 
Christian religion stands now, He practically 
gives me no time at all. It is too short. It is 
not reasonable. I do not believe it. I will 
accept this better and older theory ! I will be 
a Theosophist!' 

But neither of these doctrines are true, and 
you can see for yourself that Theosophy is Theosophy 
merely a makeshift, a putting off of the dread me ^ vft 
day when some settlement, some definite con- 
dition must be entered upon by the soul. Its 
motive, just like the motive underlying the idea 
of hell, is fear, and brings forth slavery. The 
root idea of both these doctrines is ' save your- 
self.' But, as I have told you before, the 
necessity does not obtain. You are put here 
in your world principally to accomplish Divine 
Diffusion, God multiplies Himself in you. 
You are one of the sparks of Eternal joy 
thrown off from the great center of life. The 
abundance of material presupposed a culmina- 
tion of it in a link between material and spirit. 




158 AS IT IS TO BE. 

ink. You are the 
itvveen and the lock 
holds the material 
to the spiritual. In 
you both are unit- 
ed, and — 

(lIjb pur- 
pose of if; us 
[inking spirit 
roiffj material in i\)t union zzzxi in ff;e 
Fjuman or intelligent bzin$> is fo probure 
iucUuieliialteed couscioxisucss, 
roljtrl;, like out 3fatt;rr l|unsrlf, is nn- 
Iimifrb in poroer, anb capable of perfrr- 
fion, trjljirlj is Bliss. 

This is why man is horn. 

God's essence could not be contained self- 
ishly within itself! It must of its nature per- 
petually diffuse itself and spread abroad ever 
more abundantly its overflowing love. For 
this purpose individual consciousness was neces- 
sary, so that each individual should partake of 
and be one with the Supreme. 

Having attained individual consciousness by 
the process of linking the material with the 
spiritual in an organized form, you henceforth 
go on, consciously progressing back to the orig- 
inal source. Material being the lowest mani- 



not to correct 
His work. 



RE-INCARNATION. 159 

festation of the Divine idea, you start from 
that lowest plane and go on and on up and to- 
wards your source, completing the circle, until 
you reach the highest plane in which pure 
essence is ! 

But there is no reason, logic nor sense in 
the idea that this process must be gone over 
and over. The thing desired has been ac- 
complished once for all, and God needs not God needs 
to go over and correct His work. His law has 
brought your consciousness into being. That 
fact is sufficient. Given a consciousness, then 
the cultivation of it — the broadening, lifting, 
strengthening of it ! But all it was ever put 
into a fleshly envelope for was to personalize 
and give it a separate entity ! That done, why 
more ? 

Imagine a crystal ball cut into thousands 
of facets. Each facet in little reflects what the 
whole ball reflects in full. They are of the 
same material, have their similar lights and 
shadows, are iridescent with the same rainbow 
hues and take upon their surfaces the same 
pictures. They are permeated by the same 
light, glitter with the same brilliancy and form, 
and by their very individuality enhance the 
glory and beauty of the whole. All is of the 
same nature, but broken up into individual 
forms upon the surface, so that look on which 



160 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Exquisite side you may, you recognize the exquisite 
order, purity, beauty and glory by means of 
just the individualizing facets. 

Now, imagine a crystal ball perfectly round. 
Not a line of engraving or cutting, no shade 
of alteration on one side or the other. It is, 
indeed, a pure, lucid, beautiful object; but 
what has become of its sparkle, life, glory 
of color, reflection of images, rainbow hues, 
and response from one brilliant point to an- 
other? It is, one might say, a ball of dead 
matter compared with the globe of speaking 
expression before observed ! 

So, my child, in an image infinitely poor 
and dull we try to bring practically to your 
mind the cutting up and diffusion of the essence 
of our God. Out of Him cometh all we are; 

Wecannev- of Him we are all made; lost from Him we 
er be lost from n ■■, TT - , , 

q j can never be; one with Him we must always 

remain ; and it is our joy and His love and 

grace which makes each one of us a facet on 

the face of His universal globe, reflecting both 

exterior and interior, and responding to the 

light within and without Him and between 

each other. For His nature cannot abide that 

He should be a dead, flat, undiversified entity, 

existing selfishly in and for Itself, conscious of 

Itself alone, and holding its powers in the 

limited and egotistic circumference of an un- 

animated creation. 



RE-INCARNATION. 161 

Bless God that you are what you are — a 
living part of the Intelligence in which you 
move. Whatever trials you may suffer, per- 
haps they may be the polishing brushes of cir- 
cumstance rubbing you into a finer brilliance. 

But if all your life you remain a dull and 
unreflecting facet in the diamond crystal of 
being, at least remember that in being a facet 
at all you have attained forever your conscious 
identity, and God will see to it that in the per- 
fection of progress you shall shine like the rest." 

####### 

" Speaking of the vicissitudes of life in a 
fleshly envelope reminds me of the last years 
of my admirable grandfather Pond. Everyone 
knows his saintly character, his bright intellect, 
his religious ardor, his personal honor and in- 
tegrity, his manly love of independence and 
all the virtues. About two years before he 
died his mind became unbalanced and childish. childish 
The quick wit died out, the sparkling intelli- age. 

gence withered, the flower of his manhood 
decayed, while the poor, patient, sick body 
lingered on. Tell me, I beg, tell all who watch, 
with grief and dismay, the beloved aged lose 
their faculties and sink into childish senseless- 
ness, what becomes of the living spirit during 
the months when only silly or idiotic stupor 
rewards the eager and longing watchfulness of 



162 AS IT IS TO BE. 

their friends ? Where does it go ? What be- 
comes of it ?" 

" It comes here." 

"What!" 

" I said very plainly it comes here. Of 
course, you have always supposed that until 
the body lies cold and dead the spirit never 
deserts it, but it does frequently, although 
never wholly. You may have noticed that old 
people, who appear very childish up to dying, 
suddenly regain all their faculties at the last, 
and make some rational remark that lingers in 
the astonished memory of friends for many 
years. Your grandfather is here with us, and if 
you choose to question him, will answer you." 

" 1 am awestruck !" 

" Do not be. He is right. I was not wholly 
with you in those days. I was receiving the 
A new birth, holy baptism of a new process, a new birth 
which with me lasted long. It was strange — a 
dual consciousness — a knowledge that death 
is simply the decay of the body, and may occur 
as a mere incident, while the spirit looks calmly 
on." 

" We felt, when at last your body lay at rest, 
that you were far away, mounted into the very 
Heavens." 

" I was so." 

" I wish, my dear grandfather, or my dear 



RE-INCARNATION. 163 

Voice, that I could get the idea of weirdness, 
of ghastly, ghostly strangeness, out of my head 
in thinking of death. I have seen people die, 
have helped them die, if I may say so, giving 
my prayers and my courage to them through 
the hand I held, but when the last breath came, 
the little bubbles of air came from the lungs for 
the last time, I have felt unearthly, weird, cold, 
disconsolate, deserted, horror-stricken. Such 
I believe to be the feeling of almost everyone, 
let faith be never so triumphant or religion 
never so pure. What can you say to relieve 
mankind of this instinctive dread, doubt, shrink- 
ing from the final scene ?" 

" We can only reiterate the fact of Life. 
Think of Life in its fullest significance — Life Life eternal, 
with all its emotions, passions, hopes, ambitions, 
joys, in full glow and play. Think of yourself 
on the sunniest morning you ever saw, when 
your health was perfect, your youth and beauty 
at their best, your fortunes comfortable, your 
secret pleasures sweetest, your very feet too 
light to walk so it seemed you must fly, and 
your voice at the top of its bent singing for very 
gladness. Is there anything weird or strange 
about that picture ? Think of Light, golden, 
pure, scintillating in radiance. Everything clear 
to the senses, no dimness or doubt about it. 
Think of laughter and friendliness, intercourse 



death 



164 AS IT IS TO BE. 

with friends and delight in foes, the absence 
of pain and the absolute lack of all fear. This 
The joy of is your weird, awful death. This it is to die and 
leave the earth. How ghostly it all is, isn't it? 
I would I could convince the waiting, dying 
world of this. Why will ye have ears and hear 
not? Eyes and see not? Is not the Light 
come into the world ? See ye not the Star on 
His forehead ? Is He not a living spirit among 




ye ? And do ye ask Him of death ? Why, 
He is the resurrection, the life ! Out of Him 
cometh life Eternal, and yet ye ask me what is 
death. Death is Life — the only life, the way 
to life. Proclaim it and prepare for this life of 
which ye shall all partake." 

" I believe it is my grandfather who has 
dictated to me these last paragraphs. May I 
ask, then, how it is that a weak, or feeble, or 
aged body loses its spirit to a certain degree ?" 

" It is a natural law that spirit seeks spirit — 



RE-INCARNATION. 165 

like seeks like. The more enfeebled the body, 
the more worn and aged the material, the less 
power it has to attract and hold the spirit, which 
is ever struggling to be free. From the time 
of birth the body and the spirit are in a state Struggle be- 
of struggle — one to leave, the other to keep. a^ouT^ 7 
For this reason food is constantly necessary to 
rebuild the system, which once too much weak- 
ened, is immediately conquered by the spirit 
and thrust off. The material life of man is a 
long birth, as it were, an embryo state in which 
the spirit develops, ever longing to be born, 
and when the body becomes much enfeebled it 
frequently happens that all but an animating 
principle detaches itself and enters a new state, 
bordering on spiritual consciouness, but not 
fully in harmony with spirit and liable to be 
recalled if by any chance the powers of the 
natural man are re-enhanced by any means, 
or the great throes of material being momen- 
tarily demand the re-entrance of the soul. 

I referred to the fact of evident conscious- 
ness and rationality at the last being observed 
in persons long sunken in childishness. The last 
painful effort of nature to re-assert itself is then 
so strong, so violent, as to compel the fleeting 
spirit to re-assume the fading garment of mortal- 
ity for a brief period." 

" But is not the state of the spirit painful 



166 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



and restless, uncertain and out of harmony with 
itself and its environment when half detached 
and half not ?" 

" There is no pain in spirit. I cannot suf- 
ficiently describe such a state as it enters. I 
can only say that no evil of any kind, either of 
feeling, or perception, or sensation, can disturb 
the spirit. It is the body which is constantly 

disturbed and out of 
harmony with its 
environment. Out- 
side of the body 
there is nothing to 
dread. The worst 
there is you see 
right before you in 
the deficiencies of 
the senses, the 
physical pain, the 
loss of memory, the 
stupor which fills 
you with grief and 
anxiety. In so far 
as the spirit es- 
The spirit at capes from all this, it is at re,st." 
rest - " I cannot sufficiently thank you for this 

encouraging information. Many hearts will 
be relieved by it." 

" That is precisely what we desire and what 




RE-INCARNATION. 



167 



it is your mission to fulfill. You are to enjoy 
and spread joy. That is your motto; and let 
me tell you. little child, there is more good 
fortune to you in this than you wot of. Good- 
night." 



jfc3 *-^ Jll\ 


mi 


<*j§!il 


M 


\|j§..^*;§2 





CHAPTER XVIII. 

MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 




ERMIT me to ask you 
something about the mu- 
sic in Heaven. One of the 
greatest delights of earth is its 
concord of sweet sounds. Yet 
the beautiful music now elaborated by 
means of every kind of instrument has 
been a long and patient growth from 
the beginning of the history of man. 
I doubt not that we shall have music, 
but will it be played by means of mechanical 
instruments? Some spiritualists believe that if 
you long for a piano, but are deprived of it in 
this life, that in Heaven the piano will be pro- 
vided." 

" There is nothing material in spirit. So we 
may smilingly state that a drum, a brass instru- 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 169 

ment, a piano, a music-box, have no place 
here." 

" Of course no human can conceive of mu- 
sic without some means by which to make it." 

" We have means, only not your means." 

" What are your means ?" 

" Ears to hear, or rather, the perception of 
music in ourselves. On the sensitive atmos- 
phere of spirit all sound is thrown, as on its 
atmosphere also all scenes are photographed. 
All music which has ever been sounded eter- 
nally sounds, and we have but to choose what 
we will hear, to hear it, excluding what we do 
not desire to hear." 

" This is still done by the simple laws of 
attraction and attention, I suppose ?" 

" You are beginning to be an apt pupil." 

" But this is not wholly satisfying. It is a 
pleasure to hear excellent music, but to some 
people who have genius the pleasure of com- Composing 
posing and playing music is infinitely greater, music. 
Yet how many, sick from the music in their 
souls, die with it unuttered from lack of oppor- 
tunity, teaching, the lack of the instrument 
itself. Shall they go forever un gratified ?" 

" There is no such thing here. ' Ungratified !' 
Why, such a word does not belong to our lan- 
guage. We do not understand it." 

" But if there are no instruments to play 
upon how shall these unhappy ones play ?" 



170 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Upon their hearts. Out of it are the issues 
of the soul. A spirit's genius finds its true ex- 
pression within itself, and out of his own being 
cometh the harmonies which require no instru- 
ment for translation. Music is thought, ex- 
pressed by means of a material in the world. 
Music in Heaven is thought. The moment 
the musical thought is uttered it expresses 
itself, instantly, in the tone, length of tone, har- 
mony, chord, scale, and so forth, where it 
belongs. On earth a man must prove he is 
musical by taking a violin in his hands and 
using the bow across its strings. When people 
hear it they are convinced that he is musical 
and can play the violin, because they can see 
and hear him do it. 

Now, when that same man comes here and 
Violin continues his musical thought in reference to 
thoughts. the violin, he utters himself in the tones of the 
violin by means of what we may call violin- 
thoughts, and at once it is patent to all, that he 
is capable of violin-music. 

As we have told you before, material is only 
the expression of the spiritual, and while the 
violin may be shattered, the music fled to all 
mortal ears, the man's body cold in his coffin, 
and the memory of his playing wiped from the 
minds of his generation, still all that he ever 
thought in musical exercise of his powers re- 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 171 

mains intact, to be used, improved upon, and 
enjoyed, with all the ardor of an added com- 
prehension. 

It is upon this same principle that painting, 
sculpture, poetry, architecture, and the accom- 
plishment of talent or genius in any direction 
becomes easy where we dwell. There is no Art easy in 
necessity for the instrument, opportunity, teach- Heaven - 
ing, when what is in a man or woman expresses 
itself without the aid of brushes and canvas, 
chisel and hammer, pen and paper, stone and 
mortar, and always only at its highest and best." 

" But I cannot quite understand how a sculp- 
tor, for instance, can express a statue out of 
himself so that any one else can see it. Do 
you mean to say that if Hiram Powers were 
talking with me in the spirit world, that if he 
had a fancy for a new statue of Eve that he 
would begin to look like his conception of that 
statue, so that for the time being I should see 
him practically turned into the statue itself?" 

" No. The utterance of thought in spirit 
takes form. He does not himself change and 
turn into his thought. He utters himself in 
form, instead of in words, which express form. uttering 
He might sit with you there all day at your oneself in 
desk and describe to you in words what his 
conception was ; but the more he told you of 
the lines and curves, the attitude and drapery, 



172 AS IT IS TO BE. 

the expression and character, the more con- 
fused you would get, and under no circum- 
stances could you see that statue as he saw it 
in his mind's eye. But here he would think 
his statue into form without any description at 
all, and you would perceive it just as he thought 
it." 

" And, having done so, would the statue 
remain permanently, so that I or many might 
see it over and over, or would it, having accom- 
plished its mission of being seen by me at the 
moment, go back into Mr. Powers' brain, or 
dissolve, or disappear ?" 
Spiritual " If mortal thought is eternal, certainly spir- 

thoughteter- j tlla i thought is so. Heaven is made up of 
nal. 

thought utterance in every possible form, and 

each of these is enjoyed forever." 

" But to return to music. Much musical 
thought must be unmusical beyond expression. 
It is here. A perfect clamor of hideous sounds 
arises from this city every day, only mercifully 
hidden from the ear of the public by enclosing 
walls. What becomes of the practicings and 
experiments of beginners and would-be artists 
in Heaven ? If all their cornet and fife and 
drum utterances resound through the eternal 
vault, I should prefer some other abode." 
" You make us laugh." 
" I am glad of that — but what is your an- 
swer ?" 



in all things. 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 173 

" Righteousness extends through the domain 
of spirit from end to end. You have heard a 
scientific man say, that a careless conclusion 
is actually immoral. Artists feel that a discord 
of color is artistically immoral. It touches 
them to a sense of indignation in a master, 
and pity or contempt in a pupil. Intellect is 
moral or immoral, although it is not generally 
considered so. The abstract operations of a 
mathematical problem contain within them- 
selves the elements of righteousness or unright- Elements of 
eousness. righteousness 

Now, when the soul arrives here, all that is 
immoral and unrighteous, even in the intellect- 
ual, scientific, artistic sense, is done away 
with. Whatever is done is done rightly and in 
the best way. It may be a very simple thing 
in itself, but whatever the act, so far as it goes, ' 
it goes righteously and in the proper direction. 

Since, then, the law of harmony operates 
continually and no one can escape from it, any 
more than a mortal can escape from the law of 
gravitation — whatever is uttered, is uttered har- 
moniously, and it blends itself with the general 
harmony, without noticeable or unpleasant 
sharpness — the will of the observer being the 
focusing point, which draws it into distinct and 
separate being for him. So if in a Heavenly 
audience, which had assembled to hear a Heav- 



174 AS IT IS TO BE. 

enly oratorio, one should only desire to hear 
the flute obligato, he would only hear the flute 
obligato, while the rest would hear it all." 

" If all music uttered in Heaven is perfect 
as far as it goes I can conceive of no higher 
pleasure than attending an oratorio. But this 
expressing oneself — this uttering of oneself in 
form — leads me to another phase of life there, 
which in my imagination troubles me much. 

You remember St. Paul said that ' now we 
see as through a glass, darkly, but then face 
to face.' This prophecy has always been a 
bugbear to me, and I imagine that other peo- 
ple shrink from its idea. Nobody wants to be 
seen face to face. There are secrets, errors, 
temptations, shames even, in every life, no mat- 
ter how pure, which all would instinctively hide 
or blot out forever. The struggles of the soul 
against the enticements of the flesh are, in some 
of the most magnificent characters, of such 
a nature, that to have them exposed to pub- 
lic view and criticism would be a humiliation, 
a source of hurt pride and bitterness which 
would undo all the good the experience had 
done. 

Must we, then, believe that that sacred, 

Our histo- hidden portion of ourselves and our histories, 

nes guarded. wn i c h we guard with our very lives here, must 

immediately stand the fire of ' ten thousand 



nesses. 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 175 

witnesses,' and the sins we may have hoped 
were blotted out by the grace of God, appear 
and confront us with their horrible realities on 
the eternal canvas of spirit, painted irrevoca- 
bly for all the Heaven to read ?" 

" No. God is not so mean as that. Not 
that you meant to cast a slur on His justice and 
honor, but that you felt that perhaps that is the 
only remedial punishment which would be ab- 
solutely just. But look at it. Can you con- 
ceive of a more unjust proceeding than to have, 
as you say, ' ten thousand witnesses ' to look at T ., 
all the actions of the past and judge them and sand wit- 
you by them ? To be sure, in that case you 
could read their lives also, but that would be a 
poor consolation. No, child. I will show 
you how impossible such a state of affairs here 
would be. 

In the first place, it is against the law of 
harmony. Sin, struggle, temptation, error, are 
no part of spirit life. Neither are the reflections 
of sins, struggles, temptations, errors, thrown 
on the eternal canvas. The camera is not sen- 
sitive to them. Photographically, they ' won't 
take.' They belong to material things, and 
never can leave their own element. You will 
remember that it was written that ' Satan shall 
be chained for a thousand years.' The real 
meaning of that saying I have just interpreted 



176 AS IT IS TO BE. 

to you. The evil elements within human nature 
were personified under the name of Satan ; and 
feeling intuitively that the time would inev- 
itably come when these should be wholly cast 
out and forever imprisoned in the material — 
their proper abode — the prophet pictured the 
casting of Satan into the bottomless pit by the 
angel of Heavenly Goodness. For all out of 
harmony must stay out of harmony. There is 
no entrance into the kingdom of God excepting 
through the door. The door is spirit, and all 
spirit is pure. 

Again, even in your mortal form, God has 
Theprotec- given you the protection of silence. Unless 
you choose to tell the secret in your mind, none 
can know it. You are hedged in by the beau- 
tiful economy of an unreadable intellect suited 
admirably to a brain covered by a bony and 
fleshly envelope. They may saw it open, the 
secret escapes. They may draw the brain out 
and examine it microscopically, yet it holds its 
tongue. Every protection is granted you in 
mortal life to preserve your individuality intact. 
You do not know what John thinks or does 
when he conceals it. Houses, rooms, all the 
limitations of civilization, are accessories and 
helps to keep his thinkings and doings unknown 
when he wishes to keep them so ; and the fact 
is, you do not know John very well, although 



tion of silence. 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 177 

you have lived in the house with him for ten 
years. 

Imagine, then, the still more beautiful pro- 
tections which surround the soul when it has 
entered into a state where spiritual law prevails 
and everybody obeys it. It is not like natural 
law, which everybody disobeys. On earth it 
seems as if men spent their time pulling and tug- 
ging against the very laws that are their true life. Law re- 
It is right in its way — it means education, domi- sisted - 
nation, progress. But here we obey, not only 
because we are willing to, but because we must, 
and wish to, just on the same principle that 
you breathe. You must breathe, you» cannot 
help it, and you wish to breathe. If you could 
not breathe you would be in agony until you 
could. That is our life in all its ramifications. 
We must be good and we wish to be good. If 
we could not be good we should be in agony 
until we could be good. We wish the sweetest, 
highest, noblest pleasures for all others — all 
others, understand — and we must do our share 
to cause such pleasure. If we could not wish 
and do so we should be in agony until we 
could. So on. 

Now, is this compatible with the view of the 
sins of human life being put before us ? Remem- 
ber, we all breathe in God and take pattern from 
Him. He sets the fashions here — bless His 



178 AS IT IS TO BE. 

holy name — and even He is voluntarily subject 
to His own laws. 

Then, finally, nothing can occur in spirit 
which does not work out an advantage. On 
earth thousands of projects are worked and the 
end is no visible advantage. Here visible ad- 
vantage is the immediate result of all things 
done. The universe of spirit is sweeping on 
towards perfection. Each step leads on. There 
No retro- are no retrogrades. Why, then, should that 
grades in mortal episode, which is past and done with, be 

dragged into general inspection ? What lesson 
could it teach here ? It taught its lesson of 
experience there, and led the perpetrator to 
do better or eschew it, perhaps, but here we 
cannot eschew what enters not into the life, 
and we cannot do better where each one, ac- 
cording to his or her capacity, is doing the best 
possible. 

Put aside, then, the thought that that lack 
of charity, that ignoble suspicion, that unkind 
word, that or this or the other error, fault, sin, in 
your life-history shall be made in the after-life 
a subject for comment. Bon tomB fjEtB as a 
ruIjnlB, not in parts. There lies the error of 
human judgment. So many have been taught 
that this or that error or sin is judged separately, 
or rather, that an account is kept of the sins 
and the good deeds, and on striking a balance, 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 179 

the soul is punished or rewarded. This is not 
true. Life, both on earth and in spirit, is a 
progress. Experience is the teacher, God the 
helper. Now, from sin to sin you pass, and 
from virtue to virtue you pass. It is a constant 
mixing and mingling of good acts, bad acts ; 
good motives, bad motives, mixed motives; 
hereditary and almost compulsory errors, hered- 
itary and almost compulsory virtues; tend- 
encies arrested and developed; imagination 
warped or broadened ; and all this going on in 
the mass of surrounding influences, visible and 
invisible, which act upon, pull, push, twist, 
lower, lift, by beating on nerves and muscles, 
digestion, brain, intensifying emotion, lower- 
ing the vitality of both body and intellect, viti- 
ating the will, and pouring on the receptive 
spirit the million daily drops of vicissitude which The million 
go to make the deep current of human exist- ™ssitudes 
ence. 

Now, if the being, under these overwhelming 
circumstances, keeps a general tendency up- 
ward, aspires instead of grovels, has faith in- 
stead of yielding to scepticism, and battling 
along, does gradually build up a character of 
good, here he comes with that good, pure and 
simple, leaving all that went to produce it still 
at work, still active for others in the material 
world. 



180 AS IT IS TO BE. 

And if he has struggled in vain, and his tend- 
ency to evil and the material has been too 
strong to build up a substantial character of 
good, still God helps — for he is a spark of 
God, and must forever preserve his indentity 
intact ; and although he may come here a mere 
infant in goodness, all the evil in his life that 
built up even so much (and under certain cir- 
cumstances to build up so much is a wonder to 
the angels), is also left behind him to operate 
with the general mass on others, and weak, 
fainting, feeble, into the land of Life he comes, 
to be cherished in his little goodness with as 
much tenderness and overflowing love as if he 
rode upon the wind, in a current of Attraction, 
to the Throne. 
Goodness Goodness is goodness here, much or little, 

the greatest j^ diamond is a diamond on earth, and you 
cherish it according to its size. Here each 
diamond is a gem struck off from the Crown of 
Joy, and its value lies not in its size, but in its 
identity. The fact that it is a diamond at all 
is enough." 

" But we, ourselves, can remember the past, 
can we not, and communicate it to others if 
we please ? There are very many secret feel- 
ings that I have had in my life, which I should 
not want to forget and still would not wish 
others to know. Also equally exquisite emo- 
tions which I should like to impart." 





<:. .. 



THE CONQUEROR. 



MUSIC, ART AND MEMORY. 181 

" If you keep your identity it is supposable 
that you keep your memory. I have told you 
before that you remember everything. It is 
here that punishment comes in, if you can call 
that ' punishment ' which is, after all, a benefi- 
cence. For whatever is remedial in its tend- 
ency, no matter how bitter in actual exper- 
ience, is a benefit to the soul beyond expres- 
sion. The knowledge of his past life, with the 
results to his soul in the new life, is to the crim- 
inal one of the remedial punishments which 
urge, uplift, brace him to effort, advancement, 
high aims. 

Many a soul, feeble in goodness, ignorant of 
the blessings attendant oh its increase, might 
lie dormant, passive, unkindled so far as itself 
were concerned, were it not for memory, which 
was the birth-gift of earth. But now, abhor- 
ring evil, shuddering at vice in himself, memory 
sends him on towards perfection with an al- 
mighty levership. Ah ! it is so difficult to put 
into language the true condition of the spirit at 
any phase of its existence — yet we do our 
best." 



CHAPTER XIX. 



FEAR. 




OICE of the Silence! you say that 
| in the spirit world there is no such 
thing as fear. I cannot sufficient- 
ly congratulate you on that. Fear 
in its various forms seems to be 
one of the greatest torments of earth. Can 
you tell me what is its nature and why it exists, 
and if there is any way for an intelligent being 
to be rid of it?" 

" Fear is in its nature harmless." 
"What?" 

" I repeat, fear is in its nature harmless. It 
is the abuse of fear that makes it harmful. 
Fear, like any other ' evil ' element of the earth, 
is ' earthy,' and only adapted to earthly con- 
ditions. It is not experienced in spiritual con- 
ditions, because there is no necessity for pre- 
serving and conserving life, energy, power, 
existence. Pain we know not, nor decay, nor 
deterioration of any faculty or pleasure. Noth- 
ing wanes here. Everything waxes. But with 
you self-p/eservation is the first instinct and 
underlies the possibility of a material evolution. 

182 



FEAR. 183 

Were it not for this instinct of self-preservation 
no race of organic beings could ever have 
come into rational existence. Now, fear is the 
harmless, nay, the beneficent force which helps 
this instinct of self-preservation and keeps it 
alive and active. The fear of an animal that 
preys upon it keeps a rabbit cautious and gives 
it power to secrete itself or scamper off at the 
approach of an enemy. 

So throughout all Nature. Fear is the check 
and the incentive — the one to prevent from 
rushing into danger, the other to plan and 
build and act against danger — which preserves 
the species and the genus, the whole race 
from utter annihilation. Coming to man, fear 
is a beneficent power until abused. God never 
created in Nature or spirit an evil, which was an 
evil until abused. Every force is beneficent if Every force 
you use it properly, and if you look at it closely 1)eneficent - 
you find it not only beneficent, but preservative 
and tending towards the best and highest good 
of everything to which it is applied. 

To illustrate: Man's fear of fire prevents 
immense conflagrations. Why ? Because his 
fears cause him to take precautionary measures. 
Man's fear of public opinion prevents crime 
and folly to an almost unlimited extent when 
the whole mass of the population is considered, 
for he dreads exposure, disgrace and punish- 



184 AS IT IS TO BE. 

ment. Indeed, take fear quite out of the world, 
and anarchy, bloodshed, riot and gradual ex- 
tinction would come to the race. For instance, 
to bring the illustration quite home to you, 
what do you think would happen to-night if 
fear were instantly eliminated from the heart of 
every person in your city ? Every man would 
instantly feel a new and unwonted freedom. 
The angry man would beat his wife ; the man 
bent on revenge would murder ; men on duty 
under superior officers would ' take a night off;' 
burglars would infest houses; men's passions 
let loose would rape and seduce ; women would 
fly to meet illicit lovers; servants would cease 
to attend to their duties; people would walk 
Dangerous °^ docks, bridges, high places, or cross in front 
situations. f horses, engines, or place themselves in the 
most dangerous situations physically, morally 
and mentally. There is no end to the revolu- 
tion which would occur at once if fear were 
taken out of the world. Sharp-cutting truths 
would be uttered and life-long enemies made; 
secrets would be told and lives blighted; in 
fact, we cannot fully picture what this city 
would be in twenty -four hours. 

Thus you see, with a little thought, that 
whatever is, is so far as it is used properly, right. 
But there is an abuse of fear which should be 
overcome and driven out of every heart. It is 



FEAR. 185 

needless fear — fear for to-morrow, anxiety, 
doubt, those forms of fear that almost invariably 
deal with the future. Men do not fear the 
past ; that is over. They fear the results of the 
past as happening in the future — results of mis- 
steps, errors, crimes, which they have not yet 
* paid for,' as they call it. 

Again, fear is abused instead of used when 
unfaith creeps in, or faith in coming evil here- 
after, or doubt of God's eternal mercy and love, 
or belief in torments and everlasting damnation. 
Religious fear in any form whatever is the Religious 
abuse of fear, for there is no fear in true relig- q^Iq^ 3, use 
ion, nothing to fear hereafter, and fear has no 
place beside so holy a word. Remember the 
saying, ' have no anxious thought for the mor- 
row ' — yet who is there who does not have 
anxious thought for the morrow? Few who 
reach mature life. Every woman fears sick- 
ness, accident, trouble to her near and dear 
ones, if not to herself. Parting and separation 
are full of human fears. Business is crowded 
with fears ; in fact, almost every situation in life 
has its fearsome side. Every situation should, 
but only so far as rational precaution goes. 
' Do right and fear not.' That is a notable 
motto. Use your privilege of fear just so far as 
reasonable judgment tells you it is available to 
protect the interests of yourself and your friends. 



186 AS IT IS TO BE. 

but having used it to that extent, carry it no 

farther. The moment you do you abuse the 

gift and deliberately turn it into an evil. 

Thus, in a business complication, use your 

best knowledge of affairs, act as honorably as 

if you were dealing with God, and let it turn as 

it will. Whichever way it turns, it will be the 

Goodness an ^ est wav - For if you put into it only the ele- 

element of ments of good, it cannot go against your best 
success. 

interests. You may lose a fortune in spite of 

your best endeavor, but you will be certain to 
find that sometime, somewhere, either on earth 
or in Heaven, you have won, gained, advanced, 
in ratio to what true goodness you put into the 
whole matter. Remember that goodness, right- 
eousness, enters into business talent as well as 
into business morality, into calculations of 
finance as well as into every other phase of 
earthly experience, and in so far as you preserve 
the integrity of your honor, you gain inevitably, 
even though you were reduced to poverty. 

Again, you may be watching by the sick 
bed of a loved one; do everything in your 
power to arrest the disease and fear not. 
Whichever the result, if you are truly in har- 
mony with God's will, and offer no resistance 
of fear, doubt, distrust, you may be sure Al- 
mighty goodness will see to it that the best and 
only the best for all concerned shall come out 
of the experience. 




FIRST FLIGHT. 






FEAR. 187 

But this is only the most general promise of 
courage. We may easily indicate how lack of Fearlessness 
fear actually helps where anxiety, doubt and e ps " 
worriment might wholly defeat your own pur- 
pose. As I say, having done all that true fear 
demands, in the way of precautionary meas- 
ures, if you then utterly drop fear, you become 
calm, quiet, cool, brave, strong, powerful, in- 
fluential and a force. Your own calm mind, 
rationally active, throws out healthy currents 
filled with vital forces from your well-conserved 
will. These strong, invisible forces of your con- 
trolled and positive thought, act upon the 
thoughts of others and control them. The 
vigorous, sweeping current of your manly or 
womanly freedom from the nervous excite- 
ment, even prostration, or overstrung, tense, 
mental and physical condition — a current which 
moves with a grand, silent flow amidst the petty, 
shifting rills of thought about it, will gather 
them in and move them on in the direction 
you wish to go, and instead of being one 
among a thousand as anxious and wrought up 
as yourself, you will be the directing force, 
which shall either swing them away as obsta- 
cles of no moment, or carry them on to a 
success. 

So also with sickness. Trusting in God, 
doing your utmost, fearless, because sure that 



188 AS IT IS TO BE. 

God permits no evil to His children, your 
spirit will breathe over the patient its own vital- 
ity and vigor. Your very atmosphere will 
breed life in the diseased body, by contact, of 
strength, of purity, faith, power, in his or her 
spirit, and out of the very calmness and surety 
of your soul your loved one may be saved. It 
is this that Jesus meant when He cautioned His 
disciples not to fear too much. Fear beyond 
its proper use is weakening, deadening, dis- 
couraging and evil. The life of the spirit is 
crushed in a man who fears. For the spirit 
cannot exist in an atmosphere antagonistic to 
its own quality. But oh ! how beautiful is the 
first flight of a fearless spirit upwards! It is 
out of its element when plunged in fear, as 
much as a bird would be when plunged in 
water. It must struggle with all its might to 
live in a body drawn and quartered by fear. 
For fear is a torment beyond words and is not 
in any sense spiritual. 

Cast out, then, this evil the moment it be- 
gins to be an evil. Some one once said to you 
in a wise way, ' Trust as if it all depended upon 
God. Work as if it all depended upon your- 
self.' Live day by day, moment by moment, 
as if nestled against God's very heart, for there 
is no moment that you do not lie upon that 
Universal Breast which beats forever with the 



FEAR. 189 

throbs of infinite love. If you knew God had 
His arm right around you and was speaking 
the word of Victory for you at every moment, 
you would have no fear. 

Rest assured this is the absolute fact. The 
moment you will lean upon that Arm, the mo- 
ment you will listen and obey that Voice, that 
moment Victory, in some form, awaits your 
every effort, and fear is needless. It is because 
the spirit is fully conscious of this at all times 
that no fear prevails. It rests with you your- 
self, with each one of the men and women and 
little children who are alive to-day, whether 
they shall be successful or not, advance or not, 
grovel or not, aspire and rise or not. In the 
one case they can love God so perfectly as to 
cast out all fear; in the other, they can love 
earth and themselves and what fleeting pleas- 
ures they can weakly gain, so much, that fear 
shall dodge and pursue them to the very grave." 

"Then rational courage is a power?" Rational 

" Yes, thought of any kind is a power. You, 
perhaps, do not realize that when you sit by 
' your own self,' as you like to say it, and think, 
that whatever you think is making its impres- 
sion on hundreds of other minds ?" 

" No, I never thought of such a thing." 
" It is high time you did. You certainly 
would be more careful what you thought if you 



courage is 
power. 



190 AS IT IS TO BE. 

knew somebody heard it and would shout 
it from the housetops in ten minutes. Now, 
wouldn't you ?" 

" I certainly should, on the same principle 
that we never speak as freely before twenty as 
we do before our intimate friend." 

" The actual words of your thought are not 
heard, of course. But each thought has an 
invisible influence. It is a power. It impresses 
itself upon the spiritual atmosphere in which all 
Nature is immersed, and it carries with it a 
peculiar force to act upon all other minds, as 
their thought acts upon yours. 

So, if your habitual thoughts are pure, en- 
nobling, trustful, intellectual, free from low or 
mean intentions, selfish aims, false hopes, false 
theories, frivolous, inane and silly devices and 
amusements; if courage and integrity, honor,, 
charity, chastity, tenderness, sympathy, right- 
Unspoken eousness occupy your mind, you send out from 
force llSUa your room, your bed, your carriage, your 
seat, your passage along the street, indeed, from 
every place where you stand, sit or lie, a strong, 
steady, positive force for good, clearing the 
moral atmosphere about you, lighting up the 
darkness of melancholy, discord, grief, weari- 
ness, hopelessness, fear, wrath, revenge, cruelty, 
meanness and guilt, which unfortunately are 
mixed and mingled in the spiritual atmosphere 



FEAR. 



191 



of all cities. Remember this : Every thought 
is a power. Make it a power for good." 




CHAPTER XX. 

ASTROLOGY. 

TEACH me, if you can, 
my kind Voices, whether 
there is any truth in 
the so-called science 
of Astrology. Do the 
stars and planets have 
any influence on the 
lives and careers of 
men?" 
" No, not directly. 
"That implies that indi- 
rectly they do have such in- 
fluence." 

" Man is influenced by all 
things, visible and invisible. We cannot say 
the stars and planets do not influence his life, 
because they do — most magnificently. Where 
would your Astronomy be, for instance, with 
no remote suns and beautiful planets to observe 
and lift the soul Heavenward ? And in many 
other ways they influence him. But if you ask 
us whether his individual existence, as regards 
his fortunes, marriage, business career, or other 

192 




ASTROLOGY. 193 

incidents of his earth-life are brought about by 
the influences of the planets acting directly 
upon him, we answer no, for man is a creature 
possessing free will and is under no influence of 
any such character. 

Astrology is practically a chapter of coinci- 
dences, built up by general prognostications of 
effect from cause, and helped by the eloquence 
and cunning of the astrologer playing upon 
the credulity and superstition of the believer. 
Coincidence has a remarkable effect on the 
human mind, although Nature herself is one 
continued mating and ' putting together of two 
and two.' The fact is, that so few cases appear 
in exact sequence of an astrological prophecy 
and so many fail or are so absolutely ignored, 
that in the long history, to which its votaries 
turn in triumph, the things it did succeed in 
predicting set over against the things it did not 
succeed in predicting are as the first turned 
leaves of the autumn against the background 
of solid green." 

" One should put no dependence, then, upon 
the so-called laws of Astrology, and pay no 
attention to the planets in the ascendent at 
birth?" 

"As an amusement it may do no harm, but Astrology 
to build upon it would be misleading. For 
instance, supposing an astrologer should tell 



as an amuse- 
ment. 



194 AS IT IS TO BE. 

a woman that at forty-three her husband would 
die, and that at forty-five she would have an 
offer of marriage from a man who would prove 
to be a villain, but that she was fated to marry 
him. And further, supposing her husband 
should happen to die when she was forty-three 
and at forty-five some gentleman should offer 
her his hand. What do you suppose would be 
trie effect on her mind of these two simple 
coincidences? She would certainly suspect 
tne man of being a villain, no matter how ex- 
cellent his character, and her whole judgment 
of the situation would be warped and biased 
by something that in reality had no meaning, 
influence or truth, save as a very general guess, 
which happened, in very natural sequence, to 
prove correct. For why, if her husband should 
die at any time, should she not, after a proper 
time is passed, receive addresses from gentle- 
men ? 

So these charlatans thrive on the very sim- 
plest and easiest deceptions. Few stop to think 
that whatever is predicted must hit the case at 
some time or in some way, and in the many 
things that are always told, one at least will 
appear to 'come true.' Then they are con- 
vinced. Do not have to do with this folly in 
any earnest way. It is beneath the dignity of 
an immortal intellect." 



ASTROLOGY. 195 

" Nevertheless, all literatures of all times and 
many peoples abound with allusions to the in- 
fluence of the stars on human destiny. How- 
is it that falsehood is so persistent ? Why does 
not enlightenment wholly explode such falsi- 
ties ?" 

" Give it time. The theory of re-incarnation 
is one of the prime beliefs of millions, yet there is 
not the least truth in it. Man does not advance Advance- 
in truth , in proportion to his mental capacity ^ ient in trutl1 
any faster than Nature advances in evolution of 
higher forms. If it takes him four thousand 
years to wholly taboo a false religious doctrine, 
how long do you think it will take him to know 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth? The earth will be without form and 
void before he knows that. Yet the stupen- 
dous difference between a cultivated intellect 
and an oyster, for instance, is apparently as 
infinite as is perfection from mortality." 

" But it seems strange that in so many 
recorded instances, deaths, insanity, accidents, 
catastrophies and favorable events to men and 
nations have occurred. I think I must insist 
on asking once more, is there any truth in 
Astrology ?" 

"No." 

" Can a man predict future events by means 
of a horoscope or diagram of the stars as ap- 
plied to one's birth?" 



196 AS IT IS TO BE. 

"No." 

" It has been done correctly." 

" Not by those means." 

" By what means, then ?" 

" Either by human reason and calculation, 
by reading physiognomy, form and character, 
or by clairvoyance, or by coincidence, or by 
mind-reading, or by transference of magnetism 
and mental impression, or by clairaudience. 
But not by calculation of the planets. Man 
has free will, and is not subjected to natural or 
material forces, save in a general way. 
An illustra- The moon affects the tides and his ship may 
sail at three o'clock instead of seven o'clock. 
Had he waited until seven the captain would 
have just escaped a gale. As it was he ran 
into it, his vessel foundered, and he was 
drowned. But to say that he was influenced 
by the moon directly, instead of by his human 
reason, or to say that he could not have sailed 
at any other hour if he chose to do so, because 
he was born under such and such an influence 
of the moon, is folly." 

" You say that man is not subject to natural 
and material forces, save in a general way. 
Will you not please to explain what you mean 
by ' a general way ?' " 

" I mean that fire will burn him ; if he falls 
from a high place he will be injured ; if he stays 



ASTROLOGY. 197 

under water too long he will be drowned; if 
lightning strikes him he will probably be killed; 
if a weight falls upon him he will be crushed ; if 
he defies the winter he will probably have a cold ; 
if he defies the intense heat of summer he will 
probably be sunstruck. He is always operated 
upon and thus influenced by the forces of 
Nature, visible and invisible, but these do not 
influence his spirit in any phenomenal way. 

The laws of cause and effect operate in him 
steadily, but to say that being born under Jupi- 
ter will make him rich, or under Venus will 
make him poetic, or under Mars will make 
him a soldier, is not true. Of the masses and 
millions who never so much as knew what 
Astrology meant, thousands have been born 
' under Mars ' without a single soldierly quality 
or military connection, and thousands more, 
born under the very finest aspect of Venus, 
never composed a line of poetry, never painted 
or had anything to do with the fine arts, and 
only plodded on ' unknown, unhonored and 
unsung,' in the daily round of drudgery, or 
savagery, or stupidity, which is the lot of so 
many poor mortals on your earth." 

" Yet great men of all ages have believed in Great men 

and consulted Astrology." h ;} v f fonsult- 

OJ . ed Astrology. 

" True. It all arises from the longing, the 

craving to know the future, and is only a more 



198 AS IT IS TO BE. 

exalted form of divination by means of tea- 
grounds, apple-seeds, chickens' ' lucky-bones,' 
and other simple tricks. It is on the same 
principle that people cry out, ' Do not open an 
umbrella over your head in the house, it is 
unlucky;' (What about the time when they 
had no umbrellas?) and ' Do not sew anything 
which is on your body, it is unlucky ;' and 
' Never pare your nails on a Friday, it is un- 
lucky;' and 'If you put on your stocking 
wrong side out don't change it, it is unlucky.' 
All these things are mere notions, of no 
moment or consequence, and do not affect 
one's fate by a hair. I cannot illustrate the 
fallibility of Astrology in any better way than 
to call your attention to the fact that no matter 
what is predicted, it must happen somewhere, 
at some time, for predictions are invariably 
based upon experiences of the past ; and if any 
prediction were sifted to the bottom it would be 
found to have been caused by means of one or 
the other powers I have mentioned, or else to 
have been so applied by those who had knowl- 
edge of some subsequent occurrence as to 
appear to have fitted the case. 
Astrology a Like all superstitions, Astrology appeals to 
superstition. j ugt t h ose elements in human nature which are 
most easily misled and confused, exaggerated 
or intensified ; while few ask a question of an 



ASTROLOGY. 199 

astrologer without secretly wishing he may- 
predict the truth. This very wishing and 
believing leads a weak person to do the very 
thing that would naturally bring the circum- 
stance about, and the result is that a coinci- 
dence may occur which will convince against 
all argument. We state positively, however, 
that there is no more truth in the so-called 
science of Astrology than there would be in 
such as this : ' If an owl shall hoot seven times 
of a night on one side of a house, a member of 
the family will die within seven days, seven 
weeks or seven months ' — a sentence that I 
have this moment originated." 

" I have been somewhat superstitious in 
that way myself. On the night before I sailed 
for Bermuda, an astrologer, who couldn't have 
known anything of me, told me that I was to A predic- 
sail for a tropical island inside of three days, 
and that my husband would follow me later, 
since he had decided that very day to go. On 
arriving at a friend's house I found a telegram 
saying that my husband would follow me in a 
fortnight. Up to that day he could not have 
decided, for some business reasons. I went 
and he went, precisely as the man predicted. 
How did he do it ?" 

" He was clairvoyant, or else read your mind. 
Why, child, your whole atmosphere, thought, 



tion. 



200 AS IT IS TO BE. 

intent, purpose, were permeated with the 
thought of going and of your husband's going. 
If he was the least sensitive he could not fail to 
get the impression. So it is in general. People 
go to the astrologers, either out of idle curios- 
ity or else intent upon some certain topic. A 
Astrologers shrewd reader of character, impressionable and 
shrewdread- even partially clairvoyant, will be exceedingly 
ter. stupid, after a little experience, if he cannot sat- 

isfy his client with a story which shall call out 
unreasoning admiration. But let us drop the 
subject which is unpleasant and useless. We 
prefer to get out of the plane of the ignoble and 
false as rapidly as possible, and to dwell on 
such is to us an actual trial." 




CHAPTER XXI. 




PROVIDENCE. 

WARE that the general pronun- 
ciation of the above word does 
not convey its full value, Provi- 
der ce — viz., to provide — I am 
anxious to ask The Voices if 
there is such a thing as a real, 
personal Providence manifested towards indi- 
viduals by the Deity ? 
"Yes, there is." 

"How can that occur without partiality?" 
" How does the sun shine fruitfully on one 
fhan's crop and blastingly on another's ?" 

"Why, it depends upon the nature of the 
soil, the crop, the abundance of water and the 
care with which the field is cultivated, whether 
the sun shall blast or render fruitful. If the 
soil be well selected in reference to the seed 
put in, and all other conditions are carefully 
looked out for, the crop will be a success." 

" Well, so with God's providences to indi- 
viduals. If they, with all wisdom and human 
foresight, together with the proper conditions, 
do all in their power to bring about success, 

they succeed." 

201 



co mi 



202 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Not always ! Many and many a man, with 
all possible care and foresight, has failed to suc- 
ceed because of the lack of what seems to be 
just this personal providence of which I speak. 
The sun won't shine on his field, do what he 
will ! Clouds constantly obscure the sky, and 
he fails for want of sun. The records of biog- 
raphy show that man after man of genius has 
gone down to a pauper's grave in obscurity and 
misery ! Where was the Providence in his case ?" 

" That he was a man of genius ! Else you 
would never have heard of him. Do you 
Invisible think his compensations rested in fine clothes, 
rich food and the ease of your world? These 
might have stifled the very poem in its birth. 
God's Providence to such lies in themselves — 
the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the responsive 
heart, the intellectual greatness, the pure spirit, 
the noble achievement. What was it to them 
when they came here, endowed with the glory 
of their inner powers, that for a few brief 
earthly years they suffered to bring those pow- 
ers into condition, force them into action, and 
accomplish the works that set the world cheer- 
ing with wonder and admiration ? So in dif- 
fering degrees of all men." 

" What I meant, especially, was something 
a little different to this. I meant, for instance, 
in answer to prayer, does God assist a man (or 



PROVIDENCE. 203 

woman, if you please) in the accomplishment 
of any material business, desire or ambition, or 
grant things prayed for, by an interposition in 
the individual's favor?" 

" No, God never interposes between His own 
laws. He will not reverse any law in favor of 
anybody. Prayer will not effect any change 
whatever in the natural sequence of affairs." 

"Then what is the use of prayer?" 

" There are many uses, but I take it you 
mean peculiarly in reference to a providence. I 
said prayer effects no change in the affairs of Has prayer 
men, as simply a request that such a change an effect? 
shall occur, unaccompanied by any effort on 
the part of the prayer-maker. Prayer for a 
bicycle, without making the slightest effort in 
any way to get one, stands but one chance to 
be answered. But if prayer for a thing is 
accompanied by mental, physical, or other 
effort on the part of the prayer-maker, a bicy- 
cle may be forthcoming in so rapid and surpris- 
ing a manner as to seem ' a direct answer to 
prayer ' or ' a providence.' " 

" You say that to pray for a thing simply as 
a request, without any effort to get it, stands 
but one chance of being answered. What do 
you mean by that?" 

" To pray for it at all is a mental effort to 
gain it. Now, the invisible power of thought, 



204 AS IT IS TO BE. 

as we have intimated, is often, and almost 
invariably, stronger than people suppose. To 
pray is to will more or less determinedly. To 
To will is will is often to accomplish on the spot. The 
co*nplish aC " conditions must be harmonious, and to the 
righteous and pure in heart the conditions are 
apt to be harmonious, so that to will, and to 
express that will in prayer, thus at the same 
time exalting the nature into the spiritual 
realm where will is the basal quality of power, 
is to draw forces into a focus towards the thing 
willed for, and the result is, that it is done, and 
the astonished and grateful recipient calls it a 
providence, and blesses God for interfering in 
his behalf and answering his prayer, whereas 
God had no more to do with it than the persist- 
ently carrying on of His laws, which, if intelli- 
gently taken advantage of, may always be made 
to favor the individual, as a broad current will 
carry a floating canoe, strongly propelled by 
human arms, more rapidly and well than it can 
carry a water-soaked log, drifting aimlessly 
along and striking against every snag ! 

Do we wonder that an Indian in his swift 
canoe can outstrip the fallen branch that 
simply lends itself to the laws of gravitation ? 
Is it a Providence that he makes twenty miles 
an hour down stream ? 

So with intelligent effort — mental, physical, 



PROVIDENCE. 205 

moral, spiritual ! Unless a man puts a shoulder 
to the wheel, the stuck wagon, floundering in the 
mud, cannot be gotten along. For human life Human life 
is always going through difficult and muddy infinitely va- 
ways, up hill and over streams and across 
marshes and over mountains — an infinite varie- 
ty, calling for wit, wisdom, will, tact, capacity, 
endurance, persistence, courage, and if you add 
these to prayer, believe me, your ' go-cart' will 
be trundled along — yea, to the very end." 

" Then Providence, in the sense of a special 
care bestowed on an individual in the direc- 
tion of saving from danger, restoring property, 
assisting in accumulating material things, pre- 
venting sickness and death, allowing escape 
from an accident or other phases of seeming 
especial favor, does not exist?" 

"It does not from the outside, as you mean. 
You are your own Providence. You have 
been given a universe of things and forces to 
manipulate, according to the purity and intelli- 
gence and strength of your own will. The 
invisible forces are as potent, as active and as 
real as the visible forces. Your bodily con- 
sciousness dictates how you shall use your 
material forces, and your spiritual consciousness 
dictates how you shall use your spiritual forces. 
Either one or the other predominates at each 
present moment. Frequently, in prayer, the 



206 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Prayer an spiritual force of your will predominates. This 

e ort o wi . c j raws t0 y 0ur a id the invisible forces which 

you unconsciously manipulate, and what you 

strongly wish for succeeds, and you master it 

and hold it and have it. 

It is very much like a problem in arithmetic. 
You desire to conquer the problem which 
exists abstractly in a realm that your mind 
seems vainly to penetrate. You cannot see 
the answer, nor prefigure it. But you now will 
to know it, and at once have taken the first step 
to know it ; then you make your calculations, 
use your figures, and one by one you master 
each and at last accomplish the right answer. 
You marshal invisible forces to your aid, which 
cannot fail to illumine your mind as you per- 
sist. At last you step into that abstract and 
unknown realm that seemed so vague, and find 
yourself at home there." 

"According to this, wherein comes the 
Fatherhood of God ? To believe God does 
care for me, is the sweetest thing in all my con- 
ception of my Maker. My chief gratitude to 
Jesus Christ is, that He proclaimed that God is 
our loving Father, that we are of much greater 
value than many sparrows, that even the hairs 
of our heads are numbered, that He loves us 
with an everlasting love, that we are His chil- 
dren, and that we cannot suffer without His 
sympathy!" 



PROVIDENCE. 207 

" In what, of all this, is there any need of 
Providences! Do you wish to prove God's 
fatherhood by the exceptions He makes in your Exceptional 
favor ? For instance, if you intended going on P rovldence - 
a ship that was burned at sea and all souls lost, 
but were prevented from embarking and were 
thus saved from death, would you consider that 
a token of God's loving care over you ?" 

" Many would." 

" How about those who were lost?" 

" Yes, I know. It is absurd, for that would 
not be fatherly love at all, but just jealous par- 
tiality towards His favorites." 

" And about obtaining material blessings ? 
Have you not murmured when you have seen 
truly selfish and unprincipled people rolling in 
wealth while some poor saint went hungry ?" 

"Yes, indeed." 

" You did not see any Providence in a cold- 
blooded capitalist making another million by 
defrauding the poor?" 

"No." 

"And you wondered that some of those 
poor souls did not escape the loss of their little 
all by means of a Providence?" 

" It would have seemed just." 

" So it would, child, if there were any such No such 
thing as especial Providences, interfering, dis- ciaT^rov? 6 
posing, organizing, changing, re-ordering and dence. 



208 AS IT IS TO BE. 

re-molding the sequent events of active exist- 
ence. Were there such intervention mortals 
might well cry out at the injustice of God, 
which strips the miserable to add to the ease of 
the surfeited ! Thus you see that, by looking 
at the other side of the question, the idea of a 
Providence to anybody has its veto plainly dis- 
cernible within its own essence. To favor one 
at the expense of another, by direct interven- 
tion, wholly overthrows all idea of the freedom 
of will, the law of cause and effect, and the im- 
partiality of God, thus wiping out the father- 
hood and love of God, to make Him an arbi- 
trary ruler, whiffling this way or that, according 
The prayer to the ' prayer of faith ' of any child who may 
be praying at exact opposites with any other 
child!" 

" And yet, strange coincidences do occur, 
wonderful answers to prayer, strange escapes 
from accident, amazing benefits to those at 
their wits' end how to live, etc., etc." 

"The sweet gratitude in human nature, 
which is a Godlike Godpart of the soul, attrib- 
utes these to the all-loving care of the Father 
for His children. It is a beautiful thing to 
watch the humble thankfulness of the world in 
receiving these favors with an immediate 
thanksgiving to a supernatural power! But 
while that glorious Power is truly to be praised 



of faith 



: 



PROVIDENCE. 209 

forever, for having so wisely arranged the 
universal laws and human beings, that they 
may have harmonious and successful mutual re- 
lations — to attribute direct interposition to either No direct in- 
increase, assist, re-direct or reverse those laws, ter P osltlon - 
to produce any circumstance whatsoever of 
what seems to be a providential incident, is to 
do wrong, since it is the subversion of truth and 
the acceptance of ignorant falsehood. 

Try to have a broader conception, first of 
God, then of law, and then of yourself. The 
one, eternal, is your source; the second, ever- 
active, is your preserver; the third, immortal, 
is possessed of powers that reach out and on, 
back to Perfection, even the Father, of which it 
is the Child." 

" Nevertheless, I think the world will be 
slow to accept this impersonal governing, this 
self-providence, which, while true, is cold and 
lonesome to the heart. Say what one may of 
truth, if it is abstract — a truth of law rather 
than of love — it seems to fall short, and leaves 
the soul craving and hungry. I want to feel 
that when I speak to God that He hears me, 
and that His soul responds to my soul, and that 
the ecstasy of union which I have sometimes 
felt between Him and me, has been a real spir- 
itual union of affection and reciprocal feeling, 
as a child may glow with reverent admiration 



210 AS IT IS TO BE. 

of her father, and the father glow with tender 
pride in his child." 

" In what wise does the question of Provi- 
dences enter here?" 

" Why, you say prayer is but an expression 
of the will ! That it effects nothing unless fol- 
lowed or accompanied by effort?" 

"Oh, no! we did not say that! We said 
prayer had many uses. Do not mix up your 
ideas. 

J^rooibenres ran only refer fo mate- 
rial filings— Ilje fljings of ff;e rarffr, ifje 
arribenfs, inrtbenfs artb phenomena of 
flje morlb ! ©Fjeu are relafeb solelg fo 
fyt ronseroafion of material interests) 
ffje goob of ifje bobg anb fl;e tljinos of 
ffje bobn\ 

When a prayer about any of these earthly 
things is made it is a prayer which must involve 
the laws by which earthly relations are main- 
tained, and is thus necessarily amenable to those 
laws, or else unsuccessful. 

For instance, you may pray that your trip 
to the West may be taken with safety and 
comfort. By thus praying, whatever invisible 
powers may be manipulated by your spirit, will 
be drawn favorably towards you, and if you 
select a good train, over a well-established road, 



PROVIDENCE. 211 

you will probably get there in safety. Never- 
theless, you may be burnt alive in your sleeper 
— for you are no more exempt than another 
from the natural sequences of law. But in 
prayer, which seeks no material benefit, there Providences 

is no supposition of a Providence" only applica- 

1 r bJetomate- 

"Then God does hear and does answer?" rial. 

"Aye, child! The universe thrills with the 
joy and trembles with the bliss of the communion 
of the child-soul with the Father-soul, through- 
out eternity. The ecstasy you have felt of 
pure and holy communion with God is the best 
reality in all existence, and will forever continue 
in beauty, purity, joy and uplifting, until you 
disappear in the Celestial Light whither all 
souls tend." 

" What are the invisible forces which we 
may unconsciously manipulate by will, prayer, 
thought?" 

" They may be the affections and cares of 
spirit friends, granted the privilege of watching 
over you; or they may be the innate powers of 
your own soul — as the impressing of your 
desire upon other persons, the suggesting and 
persuading by means of your thought, the 
hypnotic forces of your personal magnetism, 
the intuitive perception of the circumstances 
and characters of others, the faculty of clair- 
voyantly looking forward, and other powers of 



212 AS IT IS TO BE. 

which you are unconscious, but which you can 
focus into a strong, active, aggressive motor 
to work out your desire. Will is the root of 
this. Use it firmly, wisely, righteously." 

" Unrighteous will succeeds." 

" Certainly, on earth, where there is a choice 
of evil and good, strong unrighteous will is as 
potent as the other." 

"The result?" 

" Is inevitable. Such do not develop good, 
and so come to us weak, ignorant, infantine in 
true life." 

" I think, then, that as regards our earthly 
existence we should say with the Christ, < Thy 
will be done,' and then use our own will with 
all our might to get what we want!" 

" If you say it reverently and act it right- 

The keynote eously, you will have struck the keynote of 

prosperity earthly prosperity. God's will is in the laws 

which He has beneficently established, and He 

gave you your will to use upon those laws, 

with all intelligence, for your own benefit. 

Before we leave you to-day we wish to cor- 
rect a phrase which you have used, ' a truth of 
law rather than of love.' There are no truths 
and no laws which are not founded in and con- 
served wholly of love. Love rules everything, 
wisdom guides everything. If any truth seems 
abstract to you, you can always fall back on the 



PROVIDENCE. 



213 



consoling thought, that since it is truth it is love 
manifested in righteousness. You also have a 
latent thought in your mind, that if there are 
no especial providences there can also be no 
miracles. You can apply all we have said of 
Providences to miracles and find they both 
come under one law. A so-called miracle is 
the unusual manipulation of things by a well- 
ordered will. As for ' natural ' miracles, as 
that fire will not burn or water drown, there is 
nothing of the kind." 



Miracles, 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THOUGHT. 




URING the writing of this manuscript 
I have placed it in the hands of some 
of the brightest and most cultivated 
people of this country. They have 
all read or heard it with interest. Some have 
believed that the Voices are actual spirits who 
impress me with the words that I here put on 
to paper. Others have said that they believe 
I have a "dual consciousness," and that 
these writings which I call interior Voices are 
in reality but the answers that I give to myself 
out of the stored knowledge, imagination or 
fancy which, through a somewhat general 
course of reading, I have absorbed. 

Many ask me what I believe myself is the 
true origin of the answers to my questions. I 
can only answer that I do not know. I know 
that these answers sound in my brain in about 
the same tone of voice which I use myself. I 
know that when I ask the question my mind is 
frequently blank as to the reply. Often I have 
a preconceived opinion which I find is wrong 
(if the Voices are right), and although I feel as 
if I were talking with another person, and am 



THOUGHT. 215 

impressed that I do not answer my own ques- 
tions, still I do not know who it is who answers, 
save in the very first I imagined it might be a 
very dear friend, from his description of his 
death, and later on I think it truly was my 
grandfather Pond who gave me a few sen- 
tences. 

Otherwise I cannot conceive who or what 
the Voices are. They appear to me as thought. 
I do not physically hear them, but I do get 
thought which appears to me far above my 
own capacity and often in exact opposition to 
my own opinions. 

Since, then, neither I myself nor any one else 
can positively determine what is the true origin 
of this work, I will now ask the Voices them- 
selves about thought, and let them say what 
are its powers, visible and invisible. 

Answer : " We are quite willing to aid you 
in discovering the true origin of your work, 
and by those who have the least intuition it will 
be readily perceived that we are not ' stored 
knowledge, imagination or fancy.' We are 
truth, and we assure you that we shall impress 
the world as being true, for our thoughts are 
not as their thoughts, neither can they as yet 
comprehend them. Thought is immortal and Thought 
eternal. It is the < I, ' the dominant ' I ' of eternal, 
everything created. Without thought, you, 



life. 



216 AS IT IS TO BE. 

man, animals, trees, all the order of Nature, are 
but things. Destitute of thought, or foresight, 
or will, or design, or intuition, the universe 
were a dead blank, a nothing. It would never 
have existed. 

God infused thought when He blew His 
breath into the nostrils of the primeval races. 
He infused thought when He fanned into eternal 
flame the sun of your universe. He endowed 
with His thought the shell you pick up on your 
seashore to hear the hollow roar of the main 
sound roundly in your ears. 

It is thought that has uttered forth and 
brought into being all that is or ever shall be, and 
The tree of the roots of the tree of life are imbedded in 
the fecund soil of Eternal Thought, which sends 
its sap to every branch and twig, and blossoms in 
the petals of every flower. Thought is motion, 
force, gravitation, and every law, which, by- 
years of mortal striving, have slowly been 
brought into the cognizance of mortal mind. 
Withdraw for one instant the thought which 
holds the stars in place, and space would be- 
come a place of inextricable confusion, running 
riot in eternal mutual destruction. Thought 
is the regulator, the harmonizer of all conflict- 
ing elements, for in its potent grasp it holds 
worlds and suns and universes with the ease 
of infinite power. 



THOUGHT. 217 

Take thought from yourself and you become 
a thing. What are you without thought ? A 
shell, a case, a garment, soon repulsive, soon 
dust, soon nothingness. Out of the Infinite 
Thought you came, back to the Infinite 
Thought you go, leaving that nothingness 
which soon your material form becomes, and 
soaring above the thing you once so loved. It 
is as an outcome of thought that man exists, 
and his utter dependence upon thought is an 
idea he would do well to more fully appreciate." 

" All we actually are, then, is what we 
think?" 

" That is all. For the outcome of thought in Deeds the 
deeds is a mere expression. If you do anything ex P re ssion of 
whatever, thought was the force that compelled 
you to do it." 

" It is the motive, then, not the deed, that 
counts?" 

"Yes, but be very sure that the motive 
which appears clear and fair to you is not 
mixed." 

" Who shall sift a mixed motive ?" 

"Yourself shall." 

" Is there no other Judge or judgment ?" 

" Nay. Law is law. Whether you wish or 
no, you must abide by it. The evil motive in 
you is forever cast aside, the good is forever 
taken up higher. Beware lest the evil should 



218 AS IT IS TO BE. 

predominate. But again to thought and 
thoughts. For some days you have been ques- 
tioning in your mind what is the force of 
thought ?" 

" Yes, that is true. I have wondered if 
unuttered thought is a force, and if so, is there 
any way to avail oneself of it for one's advan- 
tage?" 

" You can. Every person can who chooses 
to do so. The average thought of the world 
to-day is what one may call desultory, casual, 
without any especial end or aim to it. Go 
down onto Broadway and enter a horse-car. 
Unharmoni- What harmony of thought obtains there ? One 
man thinks of stocks. One man of drugs. One 
of his sick wife. One woman of how to match 
a ribbon. One child of a grammar lesson ; 
the driver of his horses, and yourself of the last 
book you have read, or whether you can secure 
tickets for a matinee. It is a mixture which 
is simply beyond definition. There is no 
sequence, no mingling, no harmony, no leading 
from one idea to another. It is an olla-podi'ida 
of incongruous elements. There is apparently 
no possible association of ideas in the whole 
community save in audiences, colleges and 
schools, where people come together for the 
acknowledged purpose of listening to a certain 
theme. 



THOUGHT. 219 

But be not deceived. Nothing exists out- 
side of law. There is design and oversight for 
' every idle word ye utter.' Each has its appro- 
priate place, and wings its way with unswerv- 
ing course to its one and only position in the 
general mass. You look out at night and view 
the myriad stars and seem to see no regularity 
to their positions. You cannot understand 
why some are grouped, some single, some by 
twos, and some in clusters. The astronomer 
can give you many ideas, but even he cannot 
see the true meaning of this conglomerate 
mass, although his sagacity has reached the 
knowledge of a harmonious law. So you vainly 
try to probe the meaning of human thought, 
still more ignorant that it, too, is governed by 
harmonious law and seeks its own as surely as 
the law of gravitation causes planet to seek sun 
and bend in its orbit with obedience to the 
central force. In thought, as in everything 
else, like seeks like. Melancholy thoughts seek Like seeks 
the stratum of melancholy. Wise, studious 
thoughts seek the stratum of wisdom. Gay, 
sunny thoughts go to the stratum of cheerful- 
ness with a joyous bound." 

" What do you mean by stratum or strata of 
thought ?" 

" The atmosphere of the world is permeated 
by a spiritual atmosphere, which is, as it were, in 






220 AS IT IS TO BE. 

layers or strata, and each of these layers is made 
up of certain spiritual idea-facts, which are 
represented with you by thoughts expressed in 
words. Your thoughts form a connecting link 
between yourself and the range of thought that 
corresponds to your feelings and spiritual con- 
dition." 

" Do we send our thoughts out to that layer 
which matches them ?" 

" Yes. Projecting yourself by means of your 
thought, you may enter the stratum of misery 
and foreboding and inevitably absorb and retain 
the forces which that stratum of thought holds. 
Projecting yourself by means of your thought 
you may enter the realm of luxurious, artistic, 
refined, cultivated thoughts and instantly absorb 
and retain for yourself some portion of the 
forces of those strata. 

Seek poverty and sorrow in your thought, 

and you become just so much poorer and more 

sorrowful in actual being. Seek a successful 

stratum, carry will with your thought, take 

attention and attraction on either hand, and 

you enter the stratum of well-being, and the 

Will, attrac- longer you exercise the forces of will, attention 

tion, atten- an( j attraction in this stratum, the more you 
tion. ' J 

absorb and retain of its beneficent sway." 

" Do you mean to say that if I persist in 

thinking of myself as being happy, rich, inde- 



THOUGHT. 221 

pendent, wise and cultivated, that I shall actu- 
ally become all these?" 

" Your tendency will certainly be in those 
directions, and the forces of those strata of 
thought will react on you to exactly the extent 
you not only attract but apply them. Do not 
think that mere sitting still and thinking you are 
rich will actually make you so, without further 
effort of your own. To really will, attract and 
set your attention on prosperity is to carry out 
to the best of your means the wisest plans you 
can conceive to secure it ; and having a cheer- 
ful faith that you will succeed, puts you in har- 
mony with every force which sweeps toward 
higher and better things." 

" What is the spiritual stratum made of; 
what is it ?" 

" It is the reality, the Eternal verity of Thought in 
thought in its essence. All thought is first born its essence. 
in the spirit. It is then expressed, either men- 
tally, or both mentally and actually in sound, 
through the medium of the brain. The atmos- 
phere of spiritual thought that surrounds the 
earth is of human emanation." 

" It seems, then, that thought strata are 
principally made up of the emotions. Melan- 
choly, anger, joy, ambition, grief: these are 
the emotional elements of human nature, and it 
seems that angry thoughts add to the strataic 



222 AS IT IS TO BE. 

forces (if I may coin a word for the occasion) 
of anger in general, while kind and loving 
Strataic thoughts augment the strataic forces of peace 
forces - and tenderness?" 

" Exactly so. Anger, discontent, indigna- 
tion, hatred, envy, malice and all uncharitable- 
ness go in thought-form to their own peculiar 
place, and when these forces become over- 
much, dominating the forces of true human 
brotherhood, they produce war, dissension, law- 
suits, murder, robbery, and crimes of every 
kind. Epidemic diseases become more widely 
spread by the thoughts of the multitude draw- 
ing upon themselves the massed fears of the 
community — currents of thought flowing like 
rivers over the heads of those who constantly 
add to their depth. Every evil wish or unright- 
eous desire adds to the thought-force of crim- 
inality, sensuality, lawlessness and anarchy. 

Out of a concentrated mass of wrong opin- 
ions, wrong motives, wrong wishes, revolution, 
revolt, tyranny, cruelty and unreason break out 
in a city or a country, inflamed first by all that 
is uttered, and last, but not least, by all that is 
unuttered but silently thought; in many in- 
stances bodying forth in terrible eruptions the 
whole secret power of the body politic. 

Those who make for righteousness in their 
inner lives — the lives not uttered at all, perhaps 



THOUGHT. 223 

to their neighbors — do more to make a commu- 
nity equable, contented, healthful, prosperous, 
cultivated, open-handed and honest than all 
the teachers and orators put together. They 
are the silent, earnest, constant power for good, 
attracting and holding the giant energies of 
massed thought in harmony with the place 
they inhabit, and even over the lives and fort- 
unes of those only casually associated with 
them, they continue a settled agency." 

"Does our silent thought or tendency of Power of si- 
thought appeal to or touch upon persons with lent thou S ht - 
whom we hold no communication by words or 
apparent notice, with efficient influence ?" 

" Your thought is yourself and goes with 
you wherever you go. So if, for instance, you 
enter an elevator full of people whom you never 
saw before, if your thought happens to be 
pure, sweet, humane, harmonious or elevating, 
you inevitably impart it to the atmosphere 
and attract to you and to them the forces 
of such thought out of the general mass. Un- 
aware of it, they absorb it. If you could see 
as we see, how astonished you would be to 
note the change wrought in the thought of a 
group of persons when suddenly a mind of a 
clear, spiritual nature comes among them. It 
is like a fresh breeze. They feel it, but do not 
know how or where it comes. Virtue goes out 



224 AS IT IS TO BE. 

to others from all who desire the good of 
others. If you long to bless the world, you can 
bless it by being heavenly-minded, prone to 
charity and good-will, earnest in endeaver to 
be better and strong in faith. Your thought is 
your atmosphere, which touches other thought 
atmospheres either for good or evil." 
i " How did Christ heal the sick ? Your 
speaking of virtue going out to others, reminds 
me that when the sick woman touched His gar- 
ment He felt ' virtue go out of Him, ' and as she 
had such absolute faith she was healed." 

" Simply take that as a supreme illustration 
of what we have been saying. The Christ, 
divinely pure, with His soul longing to bless, 
heal, save, was in harmony, absolutely, with 
the thought-strata of all health, all prosperity, 
and all righteousness. There was nothing in His 
Christ's nature to alloy or debase the pure energy of 
pure energy goodness or virtue, which, in other words, is 
Eternal Life, to which, with perfect faith, He 
appealed. There was no obstacle of mixed 
motive to prevent His will from operating on 
and attracting to Himself the whole concen- 
trated energy of thought, which represented 
health and happiness ; He was en rapport with 
unadulterated spirit, therefore instantaneously 
His atmosphere and then His thought re- 
sponded to the woman's perfect faith in Him, 



THOUGHT. 225 

and the ' miracle ' was performed by simple, 
complete obedience to God's natural, spiritual 
law." 

" That is certainly a new interpretation of 
miracle." 

" It is the true one." 

" I have often wondered if evil prayers are 
ever answered?" 

" They practically are not heard as prayers. 
They add their quota of evil thought-force to 
the general mass of mortal thought, but no evil 
prayer can enter or be recognized in the realm 
of spirit, and it produces no response there. 
The spirit has no ear for evil, no eye for evil, 
no sense for evil. Therefore an evil thought 
cannot penetrate into spiritual consciousness." 

" You are a spirit, are you not?" 

"I am." 

" Yet you are talking of evil. Have you no 
spiritual consciousness of evil?" 

" Not as you mean it. I do not mean to 
say that a spirit cannot understand that evil 
exists, or cannot see it going on, or cannot 
desire to alleviate the misery it causes. We 
have a consciousness of the evil in mortality, 
but no consciousness of evil in ourselves or 
in our surrounding atmosphere. We cannot No response 
respond to evil desires, because we have no evil ^.^yj 1 
desires. There is no attraction or harmony. 



in 

spirit. 



226 AS IT IS TO BE. 

You cannot mingle water and oil by just shak- 
ing them together. We enter into the mortal 
atmosphere and see all that goes on therein, 
but we no more mix with it or are a part of it 
than you can mix a glass of water with a bot- 
tle of oil." 

" The material, then, is wholly thrown off? 
I ask this advisedly." 

"The material is wholly thrown off." 

" Yet you, as a thought, have a form ?" 

" Yes, certainly." 

"Can that form penetrate material?" 
Matter no " Easily." 

obstacle. u p or ms t ance? can y OU go through a stone 

wall?" 

" Why not ? What is to hinder ? There is 
no substance which we cannot penetrate. Sub- 
stance does not exist to us." 

"Are you affected by heat or cold?" 

"No." 

" Are you affected by gases, electricity or 
chemical combinations?" 

"No." 

" Are you as much at ease in a howling 
blizzard as in a warm summer's day?" 

" We feel no perturbation whatever by your 
storms." 

"According to that, should you so desire, 
you could approach the sun until you fairly 
were within its flaming ball." 



THOUGHT. 227 

" We can. But why do you ask this ?" 

" I desire to perfectly understand the iramu- Immutabil- 
tability of spirit. For I am most anxious when lty s P mt - 
I become a spirit to do just that. In defiance 
of all material conditions, I wish to visit and 
see for myself the planets, comets, stars, nebu 
lse, and all on or in them, so that I may fully 
understand the glory of God." 

" There is no reason why you should not, 
as long as you are in harmony with His will." 

" But you say in spirit one cannot be out of 
harmony with His will." 

" Thank Him, no. That was only an ex- 
pression. But He may not at once permit such 
journeys. If He does not you will not wish to 
go. But in all probability there will be no rea- 
son why you should not follow out your wish 
to the utmost." 

" I can hardly wait to explore this world, for 
instance." 

" Yes, it is natural that you should first wish 
to know your native planet. When you join us, 
if you wish to visit the most inaccessible por- 
tions of the globe, you will not necessarily go 
alone. Thousands share your pure desire to 
know their Mother Earth in all her phases of 
grandeur and beauty. You will be accompa- 
nied by the poet, the thinker, the scholar, the 
traveler, or if you prefer, you may go in soli- 



228 AS IT IS TO BE. 

tude, led with unerring guidance by the law of 
attraction within you. 

You will, perhaps, be escorted by a sea-cap- 
tain who glories in the remembrance of suc- 
cessful battles with the deep and who notes 
with a smile the ports and bays where his good 
Glorious ship lay at anchor. The geologist, no longer 
possibilities. hampered, will point out to you the primeval 
rocks, or with swift and fearless energy make 
his way with you beneath the earth's brown 
crust to explore the hidden depths of her inte- 
rior being. 

On mountain heights of snowy peaks, where 
it were almost death for a man to venture, you 
may stay at ease surveying with joy the plain 
stretching out before you, or, retiring into space 
by a simple thought, may behold the speckled 
globe with its cities and shores, oceans and 
continents, roll its huge sides around beneath 
your gaze, until from ' China to Peru,' from 
' Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral 
strand,' her magnificent panorama shall do its 
best to fascinate and hold your willing and 
enchanted eyes. 

Nor is this all. Mere sight without com- 
prehension were but the tapping of a drumstick 
on a drum. Laws, forces, beauties, harmonies, 
growing out of a general grouping and massing 
of the whole in the consciousness, appear to 



THOUGHT. 



229 



the spirit in clear and simple directness, each 
taking its own place in the grand result and 
never altering from the mandate by a hair. 
That mandate is Love, universal Love, which 
shapes all things unto righteousness — and be- 
lieve us, never was a truer saying than that 
( the hairs of your head are all numbered,' or 
that of 'not a sparrow falleth to the ground 
without your Father.' " 




CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE GOD-SOUL OF MAN. 




HORTLY after the last writing I 
began : " Many people imagine 
that God made a set of laws, all 
tending to the best good of His 
children, and then practically left His chil- 
dren to work out their own salvation. * I can 
imagine,' say some, ' that God cares for us in a 
general way, but when I think of this little, 
insignificant ball on which I move and then of 
my small, insignificant self, as compared with 
His universe, I cannot believe that He notices 
me in particular, or has anything especial to 
do with my life.'" 

" What can they mean ?" 
" Why, I suppose that they cannot imagine 
so great a being condescending to notice or 
care foi so small a being as a man or woman." 
" Do you not care for your own?" 

230 



THE GOD-SOUL OF MAN. 231 

" We certainly do." 

" Do you care for the drops of blood in 
your own bodies ?" 

" Certainly. Is this a comparison ?" 

" You and all like you are God." 

"We are God?" 

" Insomuch as His spirit is in you, you are 
God." 

" Kindly explain this." 

"You have no selfhood, really. You are 
you, only because He has permitted a part of 
Himself to enter an individual form. Your self- 
hood consists in being endowed with an indi- 
viduality of thought different from other indi- 
vidualities of thought, but should He recall 
that endowment you would become no longer Go ^ m 

a self, but selfless in Him." 

"Is it likely He will?" 

" I know not. Many have disappeared out 
of our realm of consciousness." 

" Is that what you meant when you said you 
did not know if Christ was in the Godhead, you 
had never seen him out of it?" 

"I think I could not have meant that 
exactly. Note what I have just said. I said, 
* many have disappeared out of our realm of 
consciousness ;' that presupposes that they were 
once within our realm of consciousness. He 
never was. I believe, and we all believe, that 



232 AS IT IS TO BE. 

He was one with God and there was no neces- 
sity for progression where perfection already 
obtained." 

" If many have disappeared from your realm 
of consciousness, how do you know that they 
did not go into that realm of ' outer darkness ' 
where is ' weeping and wailing and gnashing of 
teeth?'" 

" I know it, because there is no ( outer dark- 
ness,' and they were as God's among us, whose 
knowledge of the Higher Goodness made them 
Celestial beyond all words radiant with perfect light, 
spirits. They were the angels, the leaders, so far in ad- 

vance of us in recognized goodness that we thrill 
with heavenly joy just to remember the glance 
of their beautiful eyes ! Alas ! that none on 
earth have seen such, nor can see ! And how 
near it brings us to earth by comparison ! How 
little we have advanced when we compare our- 
selves with those mighty lovely ones who have 
gone on and up by their own inherent purity ! 

Ah ! my child, you have touched us with 
almost a mortal feeling of helplessness in ask- 
ing us these searching questions. But even 
now we know that you and every man and 
every woman will yet be unutterably lovely in 
the brightness of unspeakable splendor. Why, 
then, even for a moment, suggest that life Eter- 
nal is a task ? Nay, rather a sweet and swift 



THE GOD-SOUL OF MAN. 233 

movement upward, borne on by the ever-pres- 
ent attraction of Love for its own ; which, let 
it act upon the spirit when or where it will, in 
the body or out of the body, bears its divine 
command of Joy to every created being." 

" You say that those lovely highest angels 
have ' disappeared out of your realm of con- 
sciousness.' Do they ever return ?" 

"They may." 

" But, alas ! that again presupposes separa- 
tion. Is it a second death ? For if they go — 
are lost out of your consciousness — what is the 
difference between that and our friends' dying, 
going out of our realm of consciousness ? It 
is separation any way you can arrange it." 

" Yes, but what a glorious separation ! On 
earth you have no absolute knowledge of eter- Knowledge 
nal life. Here we know there is no death, loss of eternal llfe 
nor end. If a queen-mother feels her heart 
throb with joy and exultant pride when her 
noble son, grown to manly strength and under- 
standing, ascends the throne amid the rejoic- 
ings of his people, and in answer to their glad 
acclaims, pledges himself to equity, mercy, wis- 
dom and honor, as the head and leader of the 
nation, how much more do thousands of queen- 
mothers in Heaven lift up their voices of joy 
when their sons, having attained the high prize 
of perfection, so far as we know it, enter into 



234 AS IT IS TO BE. 

the realm of Divine Holiness, and receive the 
honors due to merit ! 

All Heaven is in festival and in brighter 
glory when that grand occasion is announced, 
and even as a gallant ship is welcomed by a 
thousand voices when she comes into port 
after a long battle with wind and sea, so mill- 
ions cry out with sympathetic pleasure and 
beautiful anticipation when one among them 
goes to the Celestials. Then, indeed, can be 
seen a multitude that no man can number, 
bearing palm branches of unutterable peace 
and singing hosannas to Him that sitteth 
upon the Throne ! For we all shall join Him, 
even you, every man and every human being. 
Not soon, not perhaps for centuries, but finally, 
and every moment of your time, and every 
impulse of good by which we measure ours, 
brings each to the sweet, bright boundary, 
which, set like a wall of precious stones about 
the Throne, is inscribed forever and ever with 
the meaning : 

Holiness unto the Sosd l 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE DRAMA A DAY IN HEAVEN. 




TIME elapsed, after reading over this last 
utterance, before I could bring myself 
to begin again. The words seemed sacred. 
They seemed, in a few sentences, to compre- 
hend a vast circle of ideas and an almost 
infinite vista of progress. I then resumed a 
former train of thought. 

"You have stated with considerable em- 
phasis that ' memory is the birth-gift of earth.' 
What do you mean by that ?" 

"We mean that life exists in many forms 
and phases before it reaches the human condi 

235 



236 AS IT IS TO BE. 

tion, but not until it reaches earth and assumes 
a mortal form is it endowed with memory. 
Many of your physical senses were developed 
before your physical organism was completely 
formed, and not until memory entered into its 
composition were you an intelligent and intel- 
lectual being." 

" Do you mean to say that my body has 
been in a process of evolution, and that when 
it had finally evolved into a human form that it 
was endowed with a new power which we call 
memory ?" 

" No, I do not mean that your actual body 
born of your mother was evolved from a still 
lower form of body similar to it. I mean that 
the elements of which your body is composed 
have always been in existence somewhere, in 
some form, going through different phases and 
conditions of existence, and that it was not 
until they were gathered into a definite form, 
The birth- which you call human, that they became en- 
gift of Earth, dowed with spirit or the true life, which includes 
memory as the essential quality of individuality. 
And it is earth which gives this birth-gift to 
otherwise unconscious matter." 

"In that case, we might call earth the 
planet of memory." 

" Yes, as we might call Venus the planet of 
love." 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 237 

"Why, does the planet Venus endow her 
inhabitants with that quality?" 

"You do not understand me. I do not 
mean to say that earth, as a planet, has power to 
endow her inhabitants with memory. I mean 
that the human form is the highest form on 
earth, and that form is thus endowed." 

"On other planets there are other forms, Are other 
perhaps, endowed with other powers ?" vf v^H ™~ 

"There certainly are." 

" This appears to lead to the doctrine of 
transmigration of souls from one planet to 
another, living a life in each and attaining dif- 
ferent powers in each. It is a very old doctrine. 
Is there any truth in it ?" 

"No." 

" And yet you say that the other planets 
are inhabited?" 

" Some are." 

" By human beings ?" " 

" No. Human beings are earth-born beings, 
and that is why I called memory the gift of 
earth." 

" Are the inhabitants of other planets en- 
dowed with souls ? When they die do they 
become spirits?" 

" Some do and some do not. They differ in 
glory both materially and spiritually." 

" Are the inhabitants of earth the most or the 
least spiritual of the dwellers on the planets ?" 



238 AS IT IS TO BE. 

" Neither. But it is useless for you to try to 
prove anything by this means of investigation. 
We cannot bring convincing scientific proof to 
bear on the question. As you cannot see and 
have never seen, cannot hear and have never 
heard, the inhabitants of another planet, we 
cannot convince you that there are such." 
i "Andrew Jackson Davis, the clairvoyant, 
declares he has seen the inhabitants of other 
planets, and even describes them." 

" He may have, but the world in general 
does not believe it, neither do you, actually. 
We must And right here and now, let us explain why we 
discover ^ our do not tell you great scientific truths, or unfold 
scientific laws, or give you discoveries and 
proofs of things outside of your material 
world in the worlds of matter beyond. We 
have actually nothing to do with the material. 
Although, as in the present instance, we are 
obliged to make use of the material to convey 
spiritual truth, we only use the material, that is, 
your brain and pen, as a medium to express 
what otherwise you could not know by any 
other means. It is not intended by God that 
anything that the human mind is capable of dis- 
covering for itself should be handed to it like a 
free gift. 

For instance, as I used the picture of the 
geologist plunging into the center of the earth, 



own truths. 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 239 

you wondered why I did not go on and 
say what he would find there, whether a solid 
interior of fire, a nucleus of rock and then a 
layer of fire, and then the crust, or whatever else 
it might prove to be. In time this will all be 
determined by science, and we have no permis- 
sion nor right to steal from human intellect its 
chance of glory and strength, by telling before- 
hand the secrets it delights to gradually dis- 
cover. 

In the realm of matter all that man needs to 
know can be brought to light by him, and it is 
his zeal for knowledge and brave defiance of 
obstacles, his patient waiting and observing, 
his almost miraculous sagacity and power of 
concentration, which has produced the high 
rate of natural intellectual force in the mass of 
the people to-day. The leaders, the workers, 
the thinkers, leaven the whole lump with the 
fire of their transcendent genius, and it would 
be a poor part for a spirit to play to crush out 
and render useless the very ambition for knowl- 
edge and growth which makes humanity but 
little lower than the angels, the pride and the 
amazement of the universe. 

Definite knowledge of spiritual law and life 
must be communicated knowledge, for however ^ Man cannot 
deep his intuition or sure his penetration, man 
cannot truly search the spiritual by himself, self 



discover the 
spiritual him- 



240 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Contact with spirit and spiritual thought alone 
can correctly inform him of his spiritual nature 
and destiny. He cannot work out that prob- 
lem without help, for he has no spiritual data 
or phenomena unconnected with spirit. Mate- 
rial cannot translate spirit to his consciousness. 
For this reason One spirit, the highest, entered 
into the form of a man and became a living 
link, binding together, henceforth and forever, 
the material and the spiritual. He established 
a connection. He is the wire, one may say, 
over which messages may run from Heaven to 
earth. He said He was the Door and the Way, 
and in so far as we may follow Him, we also 
endeavor to show you the Door and lead you 
to that Way, which is the Resurrection and the 
Life." 

" It seems to me that the world is constantly 
becoming more interested in everything per- 
taining to the subject. I hardly take up a 
paper or periodical of any kind without finding 
some narrative, article, story or anecdote touch- 
ing upon the very varied phenomena generally 
attributed to 'spirits.' But will this settle into 
any actual knowledge ? Will the time come 
The true when we shall be familiar with the true causes 
of phenomena and be able to manipulate them 
for our use ? For instance, is there any way 
to harmonize and make effective the casual, 
desultory, mixed thought of the crowd?" 



causes of 
phenomena 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 241 

" No, not at once. Education in spiritual 
law will finally effect it. When children are 
taught in school that prosperity to themselves 
and the world is secured as much by thought 
as by deed, and morality of thought is as essen- 
tial as morality of action ; when youth compre- 
hend that harmony with goodness means har- 
mony with happiness, as well in a material as in 
a religious and spiritual sense ; when men and 
women stave off and conquer illness by will 
and thought, assisting with spiritual force the 
activity of remedial materials, then will begin 
to grow of itself a tendency to harmonious 
thought, and science, by data of observed phe- Scientific 
nomena, will soon give to the world rational data - 
rules whereby thought shall be controlled and 
exercised in a way to gain the greatest good for 
the greatest number. Meantime many lik£ 
you will first give the hint. That is a mission 
worthy to satisfy most." 

" May I not now be indulged by being told 
something of Heaven in its sweetest aspect ? I 
mean, in its union of families, its mating of lov- 
ers, its amusements, its pleasures. All these 
very great and moral ideas about laws and 
forces are of course essential in your dictation 
to me, but again I must plead for something that 
shall satisfy the poetry, the romance, the affec- 
tions of my soul. Can you not describe to me a 



242 AS IT IS TO BE. 

Theoccu- day in Heaven? Tell me what ordinary spirits 

SeaveV* like mme cl ° tnere after the y nave become 

accustomed to their new state of being and are 
at ease among all the bright lights and immen- 
sities of Eternity ?" 

" You say it would be a great pleasure to 
you to travel. Yet on earth, when you think 
of travel, what does it involve ? Always more 
or less anxiety, expense, danger, weariness, de- 
privation and annoyance. What would you 
think if you could travel and see all the won- 
ders of your world, and other worlds, without 
fatigue or fear ? 

No tired, hot feet; no chafed skin; no 
weary, dazzled eyes; no thirsty throat; no 
cold or hunger ; no anxiety as to where 
you shall sleep; no necessity to consult time- 
fables, or to arrange for your baggage ! What 
Travel by if you could speed silently, swiftly, securely, to 
any desired place in all God's universe, to see 
or do whatever suited your sweetly righteous 
fancy ? What if that dear one, that apprecia- 
tive soul, who could always understand and 
sympathize with every thought and feeling of 
your heart, could go with you and enjoy all 
you enjoyed ? If there be pictures, shall you 
not see them ? If there be gardens, shall you 
not wander in their paths ? If a collector has 
spent years in getting together the rarest and 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 243 

most beautiful specimens of art, shall anyone 
hinder your delighted observation ? Whatever 
is innocent and noble and right that your dis- 
enthralled spirit wishes to do, that it may do, 
without let or hindrance, trouble, pain or pay- No payments 
ment of any kind. j^*™* 7 

This is the freedom and light of the occu- 
pations of Heaven. The poet may turn him 
to his poetry ; the mother to her little ones ; 
the lover of mechanics shall study from sublime 
examples and by eternal principles. The tired 
worker shall lie at ease and rest; the heart 
bowed down with earthly trial shall be filled 
with a sense of luxurious happiness — more 
blessed because so unanticipated. Those who 
were held to the wheel of the world's toil, un- 
developed in mind and morals and spiritual 
insight, shall be so divinely recompensed in 
their new life that their glad laughter shall 
re-echo through the soft valleys of their sunlit 
homes. 

Believe me, to have been born a human 
being was a glorious thing! It was to have 
had bestowed upon one, for the price of a few 
years of educational probation in the body, 
that individual consciousness which can never 
die, and which, once the chrysalis of the flesh is 
left behind, enters a form so well adapted to its 
best condition, that it is self-sustaining, and no 



244 AS IT IS TO BE. 

longer a hamper upon the freedom of the mind. 
Respect But respect that flesh ! Respect and honor the 

splendid environment which has been given to 
your entity on earth ! Thank God for the del- 
icate yet strong, complex yet perfect body 
which gives expression to your present condi- 
tion of existence. Conserve its noble energies ; 
preserve pure the well-spring of the blood ; use 
and never abuse it; keep it holy! Earth is 
now your God-designed dwelling place; your 
body is the Temple of His Spirit ! Live har- 
moniously within, until you are called to your 
next phase of progressive experience. 

And then, of other occupations : You are 
very fond of the drama, are you not?" 

" Exceedingly, when good." 

" Did you ever expect to find a drama in 
Heaven ?" 

" I might have, if you yourselves had not 
shut out that idea ! You say that nothing 
evil can enter there ! So how can you pos- 
sibly have any drama ? The drama is made 
up of the lights and shades of human emotion. 
It cannot be a story of endless felicity. There 
must be contrast. It represents crimes, trag- 
edies, wrongs, mysteries, and all sorts of evil 
complications, such as are supposed to be con- 
stantly taking place in real life, and if there 
were none such, there could be no story, for 



A DAY IN HEAYEN. 245 

to make triumphs of virtue one must have 
something to triumph over, and to work out a 
plot with any pith or point, there must be 
wrongs to avenge or to overcome. Unless it is 
all farce or light comedy, I do not see how 
there can be any drama in Heaven." 

" But what do you suppose becomes of 
dramatists and actors? There have been great 
earthly geniuses in both lines. They love 
it. There is nothing necessarily wrong in it. 
Is their occupation gone because they have 
entered a more sensitive, keen, perceptive form 
and state of being?" 

" Really I cannot answer you. If your rule 
Iiolds good, I do not see where emotional 
drama — the drama of jealousy, hatred, intrigue, 
ambition, as pitted against self-sacrifice, love, 
candor, self-abandonment for the good of oth- 
ers, can come in." 

" Well, listen to me. We have a drama ..Al rama of 
which deals with realities. Your drama is that 
of imagination. ' Camille ' and ' Monte Cristo,' 
'Juliet' and ' Petrucio,' drawn from the fancy 
and put into imagined situations, are repre- 
sented by men and women who learn the part 
and endow the character with their own con- 
ception of what it should be like. Here actors 
and actresses act out their own souls, and 
make a drama on the spot, under the direction 



realities. 



246 AS IT IS TO BE. 

of that controlling mind which draws them into 
harmonious association for the agreed purpose. 

Tragedy, comedy or farce, or that higher 
drama of the intellect which deals with what to 
you were dry abstractions, is not denied us, for 
we have the whole world-history of planets 
from which to draw and re-enact those scenes 
of gorgeousness and splendor, imperial pomp 
and historic bravery, which even now thrill 
and re-thrill the observer with wondering awe. 

If you will observe human nature you will 
find that deeds of heroism blanch the cheek 
and fill the eyes as no deeds of evil can. A 
stage murder causes a shudder or a feeling of 
horrified disgust, mingled with instinctive hate, 
indignation, and desire for revenge. But a 

Heroic ac- sta g e nero m tae act °f g lvm g U P hi s n ^ e j n ^ s 
tions inspire, love, his every hope, to save his honor, fills the 
audience with a new fire, a new glow, a new 
love for humanity, a new faith in itself. 

Poems, describing deeds of valor; standing 
by duty until death; offering all of life for love; 
carrying fidelity and loyalty to the pitch of self- 
immolation; martyrdoms for principle; secret 
struggles with love triumphing and giving the 
beloved one to another : these and thousands of 
examples remain where nothing evil enters into 
the whole composition, but rather everything 
that is inspiring, noble, refining and strength- 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 247 

ening to the best impulses of the heart. All 
such enter here. 

Again, much that you call evil, as we have 
before shown you, is not evil, and much that 
you call tragedy is not tragedy. To you, 
death is always the tragedy of tragedies! To 
us, of course, it is transformed into a simple 
incident, a momentary break of unconsciousness 
between one hour and another. You have 
fainted away, have you not?" 

" Yes, and remained unconscious fully half 
an hour." 

" Have you since dwelt on it as the most 
tragic thing in your life ?" 

" Why, no, I did not realize much about it 
even at the time, and certainly have not thought 
anything particularly about it since." 

" Was it frightful or tragic to you ?" 

" No. 1 simply fell back, and when I came 
to consciousness I felt a little weak." 

" Please to look upon death in the same 
way, minus the weakness and plus strength, 
peace and happiness. So, to resume : We do 
have the drama. Human history is full of 
interesting situations — far more delightful and 
fascinating than ever have yet been portrayed 
upon the stage. Our plots are plots worth hav- plots har- 
ing, for they include facts, more perfectly 
grouped as to harmony and sequence than 



monious. 



248 AS IT IS TO BE. 

mortal ever dreamed. Do you not often meet 
women of whom people say, ' Her life is far 
more interesting than any you ever read. If it 
could be published the whole world would be 
entranced !' " 

" Oh, yes, I even know a woman whose 
romance is far superior to any novel or play." 

" If you could have seen the other ele- 
ments grouped around her, her career would 
have seemed even more remarkable. To make 
a Heavenly drama, we have but to group the ele- 
ments. Of themselves they play with so much 
Dramatic verve and force that I doubt your thinking the 
touches. plot insipid ! Look into your own life ! Can 

you not remember some dramatic touches? 
And was the result in any way evil? Now, 
put in the lives that put in the dramatic 
touches ; their relations to you and to others ! 
Ah, you begin to be somewhat interested! 
Now add the supreme moment of love ! Now 
add the supreme moment of faith ! Now the 
supreme moment of self-sacrifice ! The scenes 
are somewhat ' plottish ' ? I thought so." 

" Still, I do not see where you get your con- 
trasts, your shades, your solemnities, fear, hor- 
ror, doubt, anxiety, suspense, agony, those ele- 
ments which hold the sympathies and work 
upon the pity, the loyalty, the enthusiasm of the 
beholder. You have said that nothing evil is 



The dramat- 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 249 

so much as reflected on the spiritual canvas; it 
will not take ! Then, how can you make dra- 
matic use of evil, which is the only contrast to ic use of evil, 
good that can work a play up to a climax ? 
Who or what is your villain, and what does he 
pursue ?" 

" Again you mistake. You are misled by 
that old theory that every incident of a life, if 
evil, is noted, classed as evil, and helps to round 
up one side — the evil side — of a nature. Now, 
we look at nothing as being actually evil which 
leads to and actually promotes good, by the 
resistance it excites and the triumphs of virtue 
which grow out of it. Untempted innocence 
is characterless. If evil leads to evil and de- 
generates the character and finally dominates 
and subdues the whole, nature, that evil is un- 
mitigated. But much classed as evil is disci- 
plinary and remedial, and therefore beneficent, 
as tending in the end to greater virtue than as 
if it had never been experienced. A burnt 
child dreads the fire. Caution is substituted 
for carelessness, forethought for recklessness. 
The realization of the misery of evil, its whips 
and stings of conscience, its shame of heart, is 
often necessary to bring a mind to a sense of 
its own unworthiness. 

You were not put on the earth to slumber 
in undisturbed innocence ! You were put 



250 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



A strong 
stepping- 
stone. 



there to ' work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling,' going through all kinds of 
evils, and if falling, rising again and going on ! 
In that sense evil is not truly evil to him who 
conquers, but a strong stepping-stone. There 
is no word which is so difficult to define to 
human consciousness. The good in human 
nature is developed by just those experiences 
which are generally termed evils. But were 
there no experiences, no temptations, no strug- 
gles, there could be no progress, no growth. 
Man might as well be a tree or a stone, if he 
were never subjected to trial. He could not 
be a moral being if he had no choice between 
right and wrong." 

" But you say no evil enters spirit ! Are not 
spirits, then, moral ? And if so, how can they 
be moral if they have no evils with which to 
contend?" 

" Spirits are not moral in the earthly sense 
of morality. There is no occasion. They have 
become spiritual beings, and have risen beyond 
being moral beings in the sense of your idea." 

" Well, how can our morals be conserved 
there ? How can the virtue of generosity, for 
instance, be continued and developed in a 
place where everybody has everything they 
wish for? I should think it behooves us to 
develop it all we can here, for I do not see 



A DAY IN HEAYEN. 251 

but what it is our only chance ! The negations The nega- 
of Heaven ! How many they must be ! They ^eTven 
seem to eliminate from the character not only 
its evils, but its virtues. Just see ! No gener- 
osity — everybody has everything. No envy 
— your neighbor has no better than you. No 
jealousy — each has his mate, who absolutely 
satisfies in utter confidence. No ambition — 
every wish is gratified. No pride — we are all 
on a level. No regret — there is nothing to re- 
gret ; all is forgiven and forgotten. No hope 
— all things are realized ; there is nothing to 
hope for ! No faith — for faith has become 
knowledge. No charity — because no one 
needs charity. No expectation — Heaven has 
satisfied us. No desires — they have been grat- 
ified. No fear — that is all past. No sorrow — 
that is done with. No doubt — we see face to 
face. No appetites — we have no physical or- 
ganization to gratify. No anger — angels can 
have no temper ! No patriotism — we have no 
country and no enemies to awaken patriotism. 
No self-sacrifice— where each one is perfectly 
happy there can be nothing to sacrifice one- 
self for. No suspense — ' we know or we are 

known.' No weakness — 'for we shall be w , „ , 

We shall be 

strong in His likeness.' No economy — for all strong, 
things are forever provided. No policy — for 
no motive obtains for policy. No justice — for 



252 AS IT IS TO BE. 

all has been justly adjusted and there is no 
question of right and wrong. No compassion 
— for there are no objects of compassion ; all 
are happy as we are. No belief — for sight and 
knowledge are ours. 

In fact, so many human qualities must be- 
come useless in a society where there are no 
pain, no sickness, no parting, no death, no 
faults, no sins, no misunderstandings, no mis- 
takes, that one searches about in one's mind to 
find what may not be stripped from us — what 
may be allowed to remain intact of all that we 
have worked so hard to build up here ! 

Character, the outcome of all these quali- 
ties, and by means of these qualities made to 
be what it is, must become, in a state of Heaven- 
ly perfection, a useless thing, unless we can find 
out what the concentrated essence of all these 
qualities is ! For it is plain that we do not 
need the qualities !" 
The kernel " ^ ou become tne essence, the kernel, the 
of character, soul of what these qualities have made you 
upon earth." 

"And what is the essence of character? 
What are the fittest qualities that will survive in 
us and give us identity and individuality in 
Heaven? What is the supreme outcome of 
these earthly characteristics so familiar to us 
here?" 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 253 

" First, Love. That is immortal, eternal. 
Nothing can ever take that away. In Heaven 
we all love each other. Next, peace. For 
without fear, sorrow and sin, the peace which 
passeth understanding must forever enter the 
soul. Next, harmony. Our environment be- 
ing perfectly adapted to our being, and our 
spirits to each other, no discord can enter in. 
Next, knowledge, ever increasing, ever unfold- Growth and 
ing. Next, worship — forever shall we adore unfolding, 
the Father Almighty. Next, progression — the 
growth and unfolding of every power towards 
the higher goodness. Lastly, perfection itself! 
thus fulfilling the injunction of the Christ, ' Be 
ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is 
perfect.' All tends to the attaining of infinite 
perfection — that God may be in us and we in 
Him, that at last God shall be all in all!" 

The magnificence of this answer kept me 
silent for some time. I finally continued : 

" But to return to the drama, from which 
we seem to have so far digressed. You have 
your opposing features?" 

" We have our lights and shades, our con- 
trast and climax actually before us in our drama. 
The reunion of those long parted by death, 
mystery, insanity, shipwreck and disaster — the 
lover clasping in his arms the love for whom he 
has waited a life-time, breathing into actual 



254 AS IT IS TO BE. 

form the emotions of their mutual souls, con- 
tain the poetry and romance, the agony and 
bliss which would be the useless envy of the 
earthly dramatist, and is the deepest glory and 
joy of ours." 

" In this world the drama is the production of 
the intellect. What is intellect? It seems it is 
not actual spirit, although it is all the spirit we 
can comprehend. When I think of my spirit, 
I think of that I think with, or intellect." 

"The intellect is one of the faculties of 
spirit, just as hearing is one of your faculties." 

"According to that, hearing is a faculty of 
intellect and intellect is a faculty of a still 
spirit. ' higher power, which is spirit?" 

" Exactly so. And mark you, we said one 
of them. You think that intellect is the su- 
preme faculty, because you know of nothing 
higher than intelligent comprehension ; but it is 
to us only o?ie of the attributes which make up 
the quality of being." 

" Well, let us go on." 

" In picturing to you the dramatic points of 
your life, wherein have I brought your errors, 
your sins, your mistakes ? You see, if a life has 
a tendency for good, it does not necessarily 
shut out the dramatic element. So here." 

" Then if you have the drama, of course 
you have opera, oratorio, orchestra, every kind 
of musical entertainment?" 



Intellect 
a faculty of 



A DAY IN HEAYEN. 255 

"Yes." 

" I should like to hear Parepa Rosa sing, 
and Jennie Lind, Mario, the whole long list. 
What a glorious possibility ! And to think 
that they cannot die and leave us again ! Or 
Dante, with his long, melancholy face actually 
lighted up with a smile. Or Longfellow, read- 
ing his poem of 'Two Angels,' now an angel 
himself!" 

" You begin to imagine somewhat nearly 
the truth. The doings of a day in Heaven are 
doings of what each one most likes. How 
many times you have sat with a friend on 
earth, absorbed in some sweet topic, tenderly 
harmonious and happy — momentarily gaining 
life and joy, wisdom and health, from each 
other — when the envious clock would toll out 
the hour, and with a sigh the wraps would be 
hurried on — 'Too long I stayed,' quoted, and Envious old 
Time, the old miser, would send your friend Time, 
flying, for nobody knew how long an absence. 
The aggravation of it ! The pain of it ! The 
broken continuity of thought ! The unsaid word, 
the forgotten point, the undeveloped plan, the 
dissatisfaction, the sense of loss and disturb- 
ance ! Clocks do not strike in Heaven. Union 
is undisturbed by the necessities of business, 
trains, mails, and the other paraphernalia that 
£o to make up the factors of civilization or 



256 AS IT IS TO BE. 

preservation of the race. We are already pre- 
served — to put it in a somewhat comical way ; 
we keep well, too. Intercourse and society 
have no end of time, or rather no time at all. 
You hurry on earth, because away down 
deep in your hearts you are afraid you shall 
die before you get things done. That may not 
be the conscious motive, but it is the uncon- 
scious motive. You hurry to get rich so as to 
enjoy it before you die. You hurry to marry 
because you say, ' Why waste time in living 
apart?' You hurry to bed to preserve health 
enough to go through the task of to-morrow. 
You hurry up for fear you cannot perform it in 
less time. All the enjoyments depending upon 
Time en- the labor of some one, compel time engage- 
gagemen s. men t S ; all the travel, involving accidents on 
railroads and financial disturbances, if things 
are not carried on systematically, must ' be on 
time,' and so you hurry to depots, and rush 
to steamboats, and are in perpetual toil and 
turmoil, even to get to a party or to go to a 
concert. Weather, conventionalities, hours, 
proprieties, customs, and unlimited trivialities 
of no real meaning or moment, hamper all free 
intercourse with you. Here, the serenity and 
ease of inner grace and power; the knowledge 
of endless harmony, prevents that eager strain 
and anxiety which so detract from the joys of 
earth- 



A DAY IN HEAVEN. 257 

The rule of goodness unlocks every door The rule of 
and flings the whole universe wide open for the go ° neSb * 
uses and enjoyments of God's children. Mov- 
ing quicker than light can move, with endless 
ages in which to meet every possible want or 
longing of the spirit, with every force pushing 
for us instead of against us, and every hope of 
old fulfilled in some best way — a way we recog- 
nize as the very most blessed that can be — our 
Heavenly days pass in those delightful occu- 
pations which, highest in imagination, picture 
themselves to you as most agreeable, and which 
after that transcend the sweetest dream, the 
richest fruit of industry, the noblest attainment 
of science, the purest conception of Love, that 
humanity ever bodied forth in song, wove into 
material, studied and wrested from the uni- 
verse, or drew from the trembling heartstrings 
in a chord of majestic music. 

Day in Heaven is eloquence and beauty. 
Day in Heaven is innocence and mirth. Day 
is the mastery of great problems, the focusing 
of long-trained ideas, until the light of reason 
and wisdom bursts into the consciousness with 
a rapture of awe and love to Him who leads 
them silently along. Day is the comprehen- 
sion and use of new, unflagging powers which New, unflag- 
fail and dim not, neither are weary nor of ging powers, 
weight. Day is sight, clear a-s crystal and 



258 



AS IT IS TO BE. 



piercing to infinite depths, or following to its 
inmost intricate curve the ear of an insect too 
small to be seen beneath the material micro- 
scope. Day is the exercise of ranges of emo- 
tion and sense indescribable to you, but ever 
increasing in value and delicacy, while never 
losing strength and variety. Make up one day 
on earth with only one of these added powers, 
and you would declare life too poor a thing to 
resume without it. 

Rest in peace, little child, and ask no more. 
We have striven to give you some hint of your 
duty to yourself and to others. Open wide 
the door and ask them in. If they will receive, 
give freely. If they will not receive, pray for 
them. 

We bid you farewell for the present, and 
trust to your growing judgment the time of our 
reunion. 

THE VOICES. 




THE END. 



^-Sr 




CORA LINN DANIELS. 
Finished March 27, 1892. 



SARDIA. A Novel. By Cora Lon Damels. 

Published by Lee & Shepard, Boston. Printed 
with new type, on fine paper, bound in cloth 
and gilt. 300 pages. $1.00. Sent post-paid 
on receipt of price, by addressing the publish- 
ers, or Cora Linn Daniels, Franklin, Mass. 



Many highly commendatory notices of SARDIA have been re- 
ceived from leading papers in Boston, Hartford, New York, Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, Washington, Nashville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New 
Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, San Fran- 
cisco, and other cities throughout the country. 



COMMENTS OF THE PRESS ON SARDIA. 



"This is the first novel written by Mrs. Daniels, nevertheless she 
has succeeded in clutching the chaplet of Ouida at a single bound. 
This book is extraordinary for an American novel, in its plot, its char- 
acterization, its intense interest, and its lofty purpose. If she can 
write another novel as good as her first, the American novelist whom 
we have been so long expecting will arrive." — The Spirit of the Times, 
New York City. 

"Mrs. Daniels is a writer of power. The action is rapid, the devel- 
opment symmetrical, and the realism of a kind that holds the atten- 
tion and sympathy of the reader from first to last." — Democrat and 
Chronicle. Rochester, N. Y. 



"This work has a strong and well-constructed plot that is steadily 
absorbing in its interest, and which in its purity as a love-story is 
refreshing in this era of the oppressively erotic in fiction. The char- 
acters are vigorously drawn and skillfully contrasted, and several of 
them, notably the hero, Sardia, the heroine, Helen, and the gentle girl, 
Lulu, are admirable studies. The book is graceful in its literary style, 
thoughtful in its reflections on life and manners, and is, in most essen- 
tials, a story of superior merit." — Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston. 



"In Sardia, the heroine, Helen, holds herself in constant equipoise, 
sustains her integrity, keeps her heart tinsullied, tramples down all 
opposition, defeats all her enemies, and finally wins all hearts, coming 
oft* conqueror, to the admiration of all. This character is a study for 
all girls and all wives." — Christian Leader, Cincinnati, Ohio. 



" Men and women who want a novel quite unlike anything that 
has been printed recently, can find it bv purchasing Sardia." — New- 
York Herald. 

"Some of the scenes are highly colored, but the underrying lesson 
is one of incontestable morality." — Bridgeport Farmer. 



" It is a story that sends the blood wildly coursing through one's 
brain . ' ' — M ilwa ukee Jo urnal. 



"None of the characters are stiff or stilted, none of the situations 
are aftected or strained. Every scene is as natural and harmonious as 
nature itself, and the author draws on a vocabulary as rich and choice 
as an Eliot's or an Edwards' for her portraits and scene painting." — 
Muscatine, Iowa, News-Tribune. 



" One of the very best passages in the book is the description of 
the honey-bee caught in the meshes of the spider's web. The writer 
who can hold one enthralled through page after page of a narrative 
of that sort, has a future before her to be envied." — Helena Journal. 



"There are scraps of verse here and there so meritorious that 
should Mrs. Daniels emulate Mr. Wegg and 'drop into poetry,' the 
result would be interesting." — News, Denver, Col. 



" The characters are not numerous, but are very clearly drawn ; 
indeed, the\' stand out with a personality which will cause them long 
to be remembered. The author has unusual skill in the portrayal of 
character. The plot is a good one and well worked out; indeed, the 
novel is the most satisfactory we have had read for some time, and 
will win for the new author a place among the few whose books are 
eagerly welcomed." — Tacoma Herald. 



"Taken altogether, Sardia is a strong and strangely unique book, 
and deserves the widest reading. There is thought, sentiment and 
passion, clothed in polished language that fastens the attention. The 
style is virile and the author possesses the dramatic element of sus- 
pense in a high degree." — The American Hebrew. 



